The Greatest Story Never Told
by Rainbow Breaker
Summary: Sometimes when we meet someone, they are just a paragraph in our lives, sometimes a page, a chapter, maybe half the book. And sometimes, they become the greatest story. Hermione Granger wants her normal life back but the war changed everything. Add that to being stuck to Draco Malfoy and it becomes quite the tale. Potions partners, foreign exchange, beauty pageants, and a twist EWE
1. Chapter 1

I sat at the long Gryffindor table, jittery with excitement. It was the autumn after the defeat of Lord Voldemort, and I was back at Hogwarts to finally complete my education because the war had interrupted my seventh year. Harry, Ginny, and Ron sat across from me eating and talking, but I could not focus on the conversation.

I had received a letter by owl a few weeks earlier over summer break. The letter was from Professor McGonagall, the current Headmistress of Hogwarts and one of my favorite teachers. She had written to tell me that I was admitted to the place of Head Girl.

One would think that after all I had been through a school head would be a bit irrelevant, but it was not. School had been the one thing in my life that was still the same. School was solid, normal, and maybe even a bit boring, but school had always been that way. School was a dull reality after the thrill and terror of a war, but school was still there for me.

I was unable to say that about much lately. Harry and Ginny meant well, but with their newfound infatuation with each other, they had pushed the rest of us away. I stirred the peas around on my plate as I stared at them. They were cuddled up together whispering things into each other's ear. Their plates of food remained completely untouched. Annoyed, I glanced over to Ron.

The redheaded boy was currently taking a disgustingly large bit of chicken. I crinkled my nose in disgust and quickly averted my eyes before he caught me staring at him.

Ron and I were at a stalemate. We had had something of a relationship at the end of the final battle, but that was short lived. We were both fairly enamored with the other, but then I went home for the summer. At first, Ron owled me on a daily basis, but then the owls came less frequently. They eventually stopped altogether.

Today was the first day back at school, and the first time I had seen Ron since the beginning of the summer. We had both promised that we would visit during the long weeks away from each other, but we had not. Now there was an awkward air of silence between us. We could both feel it, but neither of us wanted to address it. I still liked Ron well enough, but I did not know how he fell about me or even if I really liked him more than a friend.

I felt myself slumping in my seat as the self pity clouded over me. I had helped save the entire Wizarding race, but Ron couldn't find the time to owl me over the summer? Shaking the thoughts out of my head, I quickly straightened and adjusted my black robes around me. I attempted to eat a mouthful of peas, but I really was not hungry. I put my fork down on the table. The clatter around the room was as loud and noisy as ever, but it failed to put me in the school spirit as it usually did.

I sighed as my eyes scanned the room. The Hufflepuffs were as cheery as ever, the Gryffindors as loud, the Ravenclaws as academically driven. I watched in envy as they compared class schedules with each other. Part of me had always wished that my friends were a bit more interested in school. As my gaze went up to the teachers' table I watched as McGonagall got up from her seat and walked to the podium at the front of the room. I stared at her with anticipation turning my stomach. She cleared her throat. This was it. I was really going to receive my Head Girl badge.

I swallowed excitedly. This was everything that I had been waiting for. Well, it was everything that the old me had been waiting for. Even I, the overachieving bookworm, could see that the Head Girl badge was just not as important anymore. But I wanted it to be. I just wanted everything to go back to the way it was. I wanted desperately for this year to be normal, for Ron to be in love with me, and for that Head Girl badge to be as important to me as it once was. I just wanted to be the old Hermione again.

I ran a hand through my frizzy hair. There was really no use in using Sleekeazy's in it every day, so I had resigned myself to a life of frizzy curls.

"Attention, students," Professor McGonagall said in a clear, loud voice. The humming of voices slowly disappeared from the Great Hall as the students turned in their seats to look at the headmistress. Harry and Ginny stopped staring at each other, and Ron finished chewing as they all listened to the announcement.

"I would like to present the badges to this year's Head Boy and Head Girl," McGonagall said. The crowd whispered guesses as to who it would be. I heard a few students whisper my name. Harry, Ginny, and Ron all looked equally disinterested as they waited for the professor's speech. As soon as the students had quieted down, McGonagall began to speak again.

"This year's Head Girl is Miss Hermione Granger," Professor McGonagall said primly. I awkwardly stood to my feet and walked to the front of the room. Thunderous applause filled the room, but all I was aware of was the surprised looks on my friends' faces. Much to my chagrin, they had not even noticed when I had slipped away on the train into the prefect's carriage on the Hogwarts Express. I had conducted the meeting and assigned patrols. The Head Boy had not even bothered to show up. I reminded myself that I planned to confront him about it as soon as I knew who he was.

I carefully ascended the steps and proudly accepted the golden badge that Professor McGonagall fastened to the front of my robes. She gave me a proud smile before stepping back up to the podium. I backed away to the side of the stage as I waited for the Head Boy to be announced.

I racked my brain for a possible candidate for Head Boy. Neville Longbottom would be a good choice. Dean Thomas would, too. I grimaced at the thought of Seamus Finnigan. As much as I enjoyed his company, he was a bit accident prone. Well, whoever it was would be someone that Professor McGonagall deemed worthy, so I had nothing to worry about.

"This year's Head Boy," McGonagall's voice filled the room, "is Mr. Draco Malfoy." I felt my jaw drop open. Surely there was some kind of mistake. Draco Malfoy was not Head Boy material.

The applause was scattered and confused. The students at the Slytherin table were all clapping, but it seemed to be more out of respect for their fellow student then anything else. The blond headed boy rose out of his seat. He seemed to be smaller then I remembered him. His black robes seemed to swallow his pale skin. He walked stiffly to the front of the room. He emotionlessly accepted the badge on his robes and came to stand beside me. I stared evenly ahead of me.

"It's time for bed," Professor McGonagall said loudly. "Follow your prefects to get to your dormitories." As the students all got up to leave, McGonagall turned to Draco and me.

"If the two of you will follow me," she said as she turned to leave the room. I saw out of the corner of my eye, my friends staring at me in disbelief. I did not have time to explain myself to them, so I had to let the matter drop for now. Draco and I followed soundlessly behind McGonagall as she exited the Great Hall.

I bit my nail as I followed the headmistress to her office. The corridors of Hogwarts were exactly as I remembered: old, musty, and full of history. They seemed to stretch on forever as I followed McGonagall through them with Draco Malfoy at my side.

I stole a glance at the platinum blond boy who was walking beside me. My brain screamed in outrage at the thought of working alongside of Draco Malfoy. Head Boys were supposed to be academically inspiring to the student body. Draco Malfoy did not inspire anyone. He especially did not inspire anyone to be a better student. I took in Draco's demeanor as I walked beside him. He was staring resolutely at the ground. His feet were perfectly paced one step in front of the other. He was operating like a machine, rather than a human. I had to admit that ever since the war, I had been feeling a little less human myself.

Draco's eyes flitted from the ground to meet mine. I quickly stopped staring at him. I could feel my cheeks glow red with embarrassment at being caught of looking at Draco Malfoy. The perfect way to start off the year: Malfoy thinking I had a crush on him. My face glowed red as I stared at the concrete floor of the Hogwarts castle.

The knights lining the castle walls saluted us as we walked by. I took my eyes off of the cold, stone ground to stare at the portraits that hung on the walls. I had always been fascinated by Wizarding portraits. Art seems to have much more meaning when it can actually move for itself. We finally reached McGonagall's office. I do not think I had ever been so happy to see a door in my life. McGonagall muttered the password under her breath and the door swung open. Draco and I followed her inside.

"Please, take a seat," McGonagall gestured to the two chairs placed in front of her desk. I sat woodenly in my seat waiting for McGonagall to begin the meeting. Part of my brain was trying to find the joy in being Head Girl, but the other part was annoyed that Draco was sitting less than a meter away from me. As soon as we were all seated, McGonagall began.

"As you know, Head positions are very important and coveted at Hogwarts. The two of you need to take your roles very seriously," McGonagall began professionally. I nodded my head emphatically, but Draco just stared at her. There was an aloof expression etched on his pale, pointed face.

"Heads are appointed based upon their academic and behavioral reputation," McGonagall reminded us. I scoffed as I glanced at Malfoy. McGonagall gave me a withering glare before continuing. I bit my tongue to keep quiet. "As such, the two of you are expected to uphold the school's high standards of conduct." I nodded in understanding. Draco's stony gaze remained exactly the same.

"You will both be responsible for delegating the patrols of the castle and a few other responsibilities. This year will be a bit different from previous years at Hogwarts," McGonagall's clear eyes turned from me to Draco. My brow furrowed in confusion.

"How will it be different, Professor?" I asked out of curiosity. McGonagall shuffled a stack of parchment pieces on her desk.

"This year will have many events that focus on House unity," McGonagall said simply. I turned to look at Draco. His gaze was fixed on the professor, but there was something intense in his eyes.

"What kind of events?" I wondered. McGonagall passed a sheet of parchment to Draco and me. On the crinkled piece of paper there was a list of assorted activities and ideas.

"This is just a list of suggestions," McGonagall declared pointedly. "The two of you will work together to incorporate five activities that will build inter-House unity."

"Professor," I chimed again. "Do you really think that something like this is necessary? I mean, shouldn't we focus on academics? This is a school after all." Draco directed his intense stare at me for a brief second before dropping his eyes back onto his parchment. McGonagall sighed in exasperation as her darkly colored hat fell forward into her eyes.

"Miss Granger," she tiredly shoved the hat up her brow, "while I agree that the main focus of this year should be on learning, I also think that we should put passed prejudices behind us. The Minister has asked me to incorporate activities in school that will include the cooperation of Purebloods and Muggleborns."

"Shacklebolt asked for this?" I clarified uncertainly. I believed in Shacklebolt and his Pro-Muggleborn ideology, but this was a bit much. McGonagall nodded her head.

"He's been working tirelessly since the war ended to create a sense of equality among the wizards," McGonagall explained slowly. I slumped in my chair. Of course he'd been working for it, but was this really necessary? A couple of silly school dances were not going to change anyone's prejudices. This was not going to reinforce the normalcy that I was looking for, but there was no arguing with the Minister's orders. Draco's expression remained just the same as it had been throughout the duration of the meeting. He was as solemn and stiff as he was when he had walked into the room.

"I assume the both of you have set up patrols for this week?" McGonagall's clear eyes went from Draco to me. I shot Draco a disappointed look before nodding my head.

"Then I suppose that is all we need to discuss tonight. I would like for you to have a list of five events that the both of you have agreed upon at the end of this week," McGonagall dismissed us. Shoving the parchment in my pocket, I rose to my feet and quickly slipped out of the room.

I walked by myself to Gryffindor Tower. Tomorrow I could confront Draco about skipping out on the prefect meeting and check the list of suggestions from McGonagall. Tonight I just wanted to sleep in my Gryffindor dormitory and forget about today. As I climbed the stone steps, I knew one thing for certain. This year would not be the normal I had been wanting so badly.


	2. Chapter 2

My first class of the day was Potions. I gently slipped into my Gryffindor uniform and pulled my robe over my shoulders. I glanced into the mirror that hung in my dormitory that I shared with the other Seventh Year girls of Gryffindor.

Have you ever had one of those moments where you did not recognize yourself? It does not happen very often, but when it does it is unreal. It is a sort of out of body experience.

That is how I felt staring into the mirror that morning. Sure, I recognized the excess of brown freckles sprinkled across what I recognized as my button nose. I recognized the frizzy hair that fell in dark, bushy ringlets down my back. I even came to recognize the white scar down my arm that Bellatrix had given me. I shuddered involuntarily as I pulled the sleeve back down my arm to hide the jagged mark.

I stared at the girl in the mirror, but she did not seem like me. She seemed younger. She seemed more innocent and naive. I stepped away from the mirror and past the beds of the other girls that I shared the room with. I shook myself out of my reverie and grabbed my book bag off of the red blankets of my bed. I flung the bag over my shoulder as I pushed passed the other girls that were getting ready.

I stumbled down the stairs and into the Gryffindor common room. I scanned the group of students for my friends, but they were not there. I assumed that Ginny and Harry had already gone down to breakfast together. Merlin knew what Ron was up to. My spirits darkened a bit at the thought of going downstairs alone. It seemed like no one had time for me anymore.

I made my way out of the room and crawled through the portrait door. The fat lady bid me a good morning as I sauntered down the corridor toward the Great Hall. I was walking down one of the staircases when I caught a glimpse of that redheaded bane of my existence.

Ron was talking to a few of the boys from Gryffindor. He locked gazes with me for a brief second before walking away with his friends. I felt my heart tear a little as I scuttled to the Great Hall. Why was he being like this? Were we not still friends? I tried to distract myself by pulling my time table out of my bag.

It was nothing I had not seen before. A careful rotation of classes was laid out on the piece of parchment. I noticed that my Potions class was with the Slytherins, but that was nothing new.

I sat down by Parvati Patil at the Gryffindor table. My options were slim, and Parvati seemed harmless enough.

"Good morning, Hermione," Parvati said warmly. I returned the greeting numbly as I grabbed a piece of toast. Parvati chatted mindlessly about lip gloss and new quills and a story she had read earlier that morning in _The Prophet_. It was just small talk, but I could not really focus on it.

I ate my toast absorbed in my thoughts. As soon as I was done, I politely interrupted Parvati and left the room.

I walked to the Potions dungeons quickly so that I would not be late. I wanted to get to class before the others to get a good spot in the classroom. I entered the classroom and scanned the tables for the best seating. I found a chair in the front and sat down. I pulled my ink well, a roll of parchment, and my favorite quill out of my bag.

I was arranging all of my supplies in perfect order while the rest of the students slowly trickled into the room. I waited for a few minutes until the professor came sweeping into the room. I twisted my head back to look at Snape's newest replacement.

The new Potions professor was strikingly beautiful. Her blonde hair was twisted back into a simple bun at the nape of her neck. A few tendrils of curls were hanging around the sides of her face. She was dressed immaculately and professionally. She had deep blue eyes that were almost soul -piercing. I saw several of the Gryffindor boys nudge each other as she walked to the front of the room.

The new professor came to stand at the front of the class. Her light blue robes wrapped softly around her. She gently pulled out her wand and poised it in the air above her head.

"Good morning, students," the blonde professor's voice rang clearly. She used her wand to scroll letters through the air. "I am Professor Vayne, your new Potions teacher," Professor Vayne finished twirling her wand through the air, leaving her name shimmering above her for a few seconds before it disappeared.

"All right everyone, I would like you all to gather your things and sit with someone who is of another House than you," Professor Vayne directed kindly. Groans emitted from the entire room, but no one in the class moved. Professor Vayne's countenance immediately contorted. Her wand was held tightly in her hand in a more threatening pose.

"Move!" She shouted. I immediately stood to my feet. The other students milled around me as they found a Slytherin or Gryffindor to sit next to. I stood awkwardly to the side of the room as I weighed my options.

Blaise Zabini seemed tolerable enough, but he was already sitting next to Ginny. Pansy Parkinson was out of the question for my sanity alone. Goyle was not to be considered. Tracey Davis seemed plausible, but Ron was sitting next to her. Neither of them looked unhappy about it either. No, that had to be in my head. I bit my lip and turned my attention back to possible Potions partners.

I was scanning the room when a black robe appeared right in front of me. My eyes traveled up the Slytherin tie into the cold, grey eyes of Draco Malfoy.

"What do you want, Malfoy?" I bit out. Draco's intense gaze locked with mine. I faltered for a second, but I did not step back.

"I want to pass Potions, Granger," Draco said icily. I narrowed my own eyes at him.

"I'm not going to do all your work for you, Malfoy," I told him sharply. "Go find a different partner." I brushed past Draco to look for a more suitable partner. Everyone else was already paired up. I turned to look back at Draco. He was sitting by himself at a table in the back. He raised an eyebrow at me before gesturing to the chair next to him. I flipped my head back to look at the rest of the students. I pursed my lips as I looked around the room one final time. My eyes caught a glint of red. Ginny! I would appeal to Ginny.

I walked over to where the redheaded girl was sitting. She appeared to be in an argument with Blaise. The Slytherin boy had his arms crossed across his chest. He was reclining easily in his chair, but there was a look of annoyance across his dark, handsome face. Ginny's eyes were burning brightly in anger as she hissed something to him under her breath. I could not make out what she said, but I guessed by his facial reaction that it was not something pleasant.

"You're in Gryffindor, right?" A voice said from behind me. I turned and saw Professor Vayne looking at me.

"Yes, ma'am," I nodded. Vayne sent me a scathing glare.

"Is there a problem identifying a Slytherin classmate to work with?" Vayne asked me with one of her delicate eyebrows raised in mock interest. A few snickers were heard around the room as a blush fought across my cheeks.

"No ma'am," I whispered, keeping my eyes firmly on the ground.

"Then please be seated," she directed icily. I bent my head forward as I made my way to the back table where Draco was seated. A smirk was smeared across his face. I sent him a scowl as I sat in the seat next to him. As the lesson began I tried to slide my chair away from him as quietly as I could. My eyes were firmly on Professor Vayne as I stealthily moved my chair away from Draco.

"Why the act, Granger?" A voice breathed into my ear. I instantly recoiled to find Draco Malfoy disturbingly close to my face. Apparently, he had been whispering something to me.

"What are you talking about, Malfoy?" I countered quickly. Draco's self-assured smirk was still on his lips. He bent his head close to my ear again. I held my breath while he whispered.

"You do not have to act like you're disappointed that we're partners," Draco said quietly. I turned my head to look at him with wide eyes.

"But I am," I whispered flatly. Draco's intense grey eyes stared into mine.

"Rather be with Weasel?" Draco drawled slowly. My gaze flickered over to where Ron was sitting with Tracey Davis. They were smiling about something.

"I'd rather be with anyone," I retorted shortly. Draco sent me a cold glare before looking back at the teacher. I picked up my quill and began to furiously scribble down the notes of the lesson.

The class passed by pretty easily. First days of school are always fairly easy. We worked with some different ingredients and tried a few different potions.

"Your homework," Professor Vayne's gentle voice said at the end of class, "is to create any of the potions listed on pages 107 to 136 in your spell book. This is a group project. You will work with your partner. I expect the potion and an essay on its effects to be ready by next week. Class dismissed."

I could literally feel my world crumbling around me. The students made a collective sound of disappointment as they gathered their things and left the room. Draco was exiting out of the door when I caught up with him.

"When should we start our project, Malfoy?" I asked him as I followed after him down the corridor. A condescending smile crossed his lips.

"Knew you would be excited to spend some time with me, Granger," Malfoy said self-assuredly. I tilted my head at Malfoy as we walked.

"I'll see you all the time, Malfoy, the both of us being Heads and all. What's there to be excited about?" I said with a fake calmness. I was not sure what Malfoy's angle was or what he was trying to accomplish, but I was not going to play his game. I was not going to let him get inside my head. A scowl crossed Draco's face.

"Our project isn't due until next week. There's no need to try and be the teacher's pet," Draco reminded me. I huffed in indignation.

"It's not wrong to want to do well, Malfoy," I said coldly. Draco did not reply. He continued to walk in silence down the musty corridor. I waited patiently for him to respond to my original question, but he remained mute.

"Malfoy," I prodded after a few minutes of silence. Malfoy threw his hand over his face in frustration.

"Merlin, Granger," Malfoy exclaimed. I jumped a little in surprise at his sudden outburst. "I do not care when we meet. You set up the time and place, and I'll be there." I raised an eyebrow.

"I do not mind setting up the meeting, Malfoy, but I'm not doing all the work for you," I told him firmly. When Draco just kept walking away from me, my arm shot out to grab the sleeve of his robe. Draco instantly froze. His eyes dropped to where my hand was clutching part of his sleeve. I had pulled some of it up to reveal the beginnings of his Dark Mark. Draco's grey eyes turned up at me filled with anger. I instantly dropped my hold on his sleeve and took a step away from him.

"I'm not doing all the work," I repeated, and, with that, I fled down corridor as quickly as my legs would carry me. Malfoy disliked me; that part was normal. I cared that Malfoy disliked me, and I wanted to fix it.

That was anything but normal.


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Thank you to everyone who has reviewed, favorited, and alerted this story. :)**

**Stuck**

I had set up a meeting with Draco for the next day. I had wanted to start our project on the day that we received the assignment, but when I suggested that to Draco he was not pleased. So, I had set up the meeting for early in the morning before classes began.

I ran a brush through my curls one final time before grabbing my bag off the bed. I did not stop to check in the mirror. Lately, my reflection disturbed me for some reason. I passed by Parvati, who was sprawled across her unmade bed. She appeared to be reading a beauty column in some magazine.

"Going out, Hermione?" Parvati asked me as she looked up from her magazine to see me with my overstuffed school bag.

"Why are you awake, Parvati?" I asked her. "It's early." Parvati flipped the pages of her magazine idly.

"I couldn't sleep. Are you going somewhere?" She asked me again.

"I've got a meeting with Draco," I shrugged my shoulder. Parvati shot up into a sitting position as her countenance immediately brightened.

"What kind of meeting?" She asked excitedly. I rolled my tired eyes at her. She was so utterly ridiculous sometimes.

"It's for our Potions class, Parvati. It's only a school assignment. Nothing to get so excited over," I assured her firmly. Parvati raised an eyebrow at me in skepticism.

"You know, the whole school is talking about you and Draco. Being Heads and all," Parvati told me covertly. I sighed heavily and readjusted the strap of my school bag.

"What about me and Draco?" I asked her with a bored tone in my voice. Parvati shrugged her shoulder.

"Heads just spend a lot of time together. Who knows? You might end up liking him," Parvati said simply. Her eyes dropped back to her beauty column. I approached the side of her bed.

"Parvati, this is Draco Malfoy. Think of what he's done to Harry. Nothing could ever happen between us. Even if there was some remote chance that I liked him. Which there's not," I told her quickly as I saw the light come on in her eyes. "Imagine how mad my friends would be."

"Imagine how mad they are," Parvati said bluntly. She was still reading her column, so she could not see the stricken look on my face. I retreated from the room slowly as I considered what she had said.

Were they mad at me for being a Head with Draco? Surely not. That would be completely unfounded. I did not get to choose Head Boy. I certainly would not have chosen Draco had the opportunity presented itself.

My thoughts clouded my mind as I tripped down the stairs. Draco and I were meeting in one of the unused dungeon classrooms. We needed a place that we could practice a potion in, and quite possibly, explode a potion in. The list of possible potion choices from Professor Vayne included some pretty advanced combinations. I wanted to try one of the difficult ones, no matter what Draco thought.

I walked quickly down the corridor. My shoulder was bending forward under the weight of my book bag as I pushed some of my bushy hair out of my face.

"You're going to harm yourself, Granger," Draco's voice drawled from where he leaned against the wall. He indicated my heavy bag that was pulling down on my shoulder.

"What do you care, Malfoy?" I spat, but I readjusted the bag on my shoulder. Draco's grey eyes flickered from the bag to my face.

"Wouldn't want you to be unable to work on the project," Draco shrugged. He moved off of the wall and entered the doorway of the classroom that we were using. I followed behind him.

"I was thinking that we could make a healing potion," I told Draco as we place our bags under the table.

"All right," Draco said noncommittally.

"Well, I thought it would be a good idea to learn how to make it now because healing potions could be useful later," I stated. Draco lifted his head to look back at me.

"I already agreed to it, Granger," Draco said simply. "There's no need to sway me."

"Oh," I muttered quietly. I had no idea when I had become so defensive of my decisions. When did I begin to care what Malfoy thought about me? It was not on purpose; that was certain.

I walked to the closet and pulled out a few ingredients.

"Check page 124, Malfoy," I called to Draco from inside the ingredients closet.

"What about it?" Draco called back to me. I rolled my eyes. Deep breath, Hermione. Deep breath.

"What do we need for the potion?" I asked him as evenly as I could. He could at least pretend that he was going to be of use for this project.

Draco walked over to the closet and read me the list of things that we needed for our homework. My arms were quickly filling up with a variety of things that we would need for the potion. I sighed a little in happiness. I quite enjoyed making potions. It felt so magical to brew something together. It was always one of those moments that made me glad that I was a witch.

"We're doing a wound-closing potion?" Draco wondered as I carried everything back to the table.

"Yes," I replied. "Basically it sticks the skin back together. It's good for lacerations or anything that would need stitches."

"What are stitches?" Draco asked me as he furrowed his brow in confusion.

"They are a Muggle medicine tactic," I started to explain. Draco sent me a withering look. "Never mind."

Draco and I worked in silence for a few minutes. I would put one ingredient of the potion into the cauldron and Malfoy would put the next one in. It was a simple yet effective system. I had just dropped my ingredient into the cauldron, when Malfoy reached for a bottle. He poured out a measure of the liquid into a spoon. I tried to guess what it was by the color of the liquid. I looked at the page in the Potions text book. Malfoy was supposed to be working with beetle juice. Beetle juice was purple. Whatever liquid that Malfoy had was red. I peered over to see the label of the bottle wondering if it was just a different kind of beetle juice.

"Wait, Malfoy!" I yelled at him. Draco overturned the spoon as I screamed at him, and the red liquid fell inside. As soon as the drops of red hit the concoction in the cauldron, an explosion erupted throughout the room. The blast knocked me to the floor.

The purple smoke slowly cleared to reveal Malfoy covering his mouth as a wheezing cough racked his body. As soon as I could breathe, I began to berate his actions.

"What in the world is wrong with you?" I demanded in a shrill voice from where I was sprawled across the floor. Draco was still coughing.

"I told you not to add the Goblin blood!" I shouted. I stood to my feet and brushed the purple soot off of my robes. Draco's cough was so bad now that he had doubled over with his hands on his knees. The usually pale skin that stretched across his face was now a flustered red because of his difficulty breathing.

"Are you always this incorrigible, or do I get some sort of special treatment?" I asked sarcastically as I bent down by the spilled remains of the potion.

"Merlin, Granger. I'm dying. I understand that you are upset, but honestly," Draco gasped. I rolled my eyes. When had he gotten to be so dramatic? My mind flashed to Third year when Draco had caused such a big fuss about Buckbeak. Right. He had always been dramatic. It was just as of late that he had started to be so stoic.

"You'll be all right," I assured Draco calmly. I muttered a cleaning spell under my breath. As I waved my wand, the rest of the potion disappeared.

"Thank you, Healer," Draco drawled. I could hear the derision in his voice, but I chose not to look at him.

"Well, I suppose that's enough for this morning. We will have to start from the beginning tomorrow morning," I said as I straightened back up to my full height. I pushed all of my belongings into my bag and prepared to go. Malfoy could put all of the ingredients back where they belonged. I slung my bag over my shoulder with every intention of leaving the dungeon.

I took a few steps when suddenly I could not step anymore. It was as if there was an invisible rope that was holding me back. I tried to take a step again, but the invisible force still had me. I turned back to look at Draco. He raised one of his blond eyebrows.

"Can't bear to leave me, Granger?" Malfoy asked snidely. I reached for my wand in the pocket of my robe.

"No, it doesn't seem that I can," I said calmly as I put my wand into the air. Draco's face instantly contorted in an expression of puzzlement.

"Why not?" he wondered. I bit my lip as I glanced up at Malfoy.

"It appears that I am unable to leave the room," I said uncertainly. I swished my wand through the air as I performed a _Finite Incantatum _spell. I tried to take a step back, but it did not work.

"Can you move?" I asked Draco. Noiselessly, Draco walked towards me.

"I can move," Draco affirmed. I sighed in bewilderment as Draco continued to walk past me. My bewilderment grew.

"Where are you going?" I asked him sharply. Draco turned around with his trademark smirk curling his lips.

"You're stuck, and I'm not. Why should I stay?" Draco questioned me. His voice dripped with fake innocence.

"Malfoy, you can't leave me here!" I yelled after him. Draco just turned away from me. He took a few more steps before he stopped.

"I don't believe it," I said in surprised awe. "You're staying to help me?" Draco sent me a withering glare.

"Of course not," Draco bit out. "I can't move either."

"This doesn't make sense. How were you able to move before? It feels like something is pulling us back, so why were you able to move farther than I was?" I wondered out loud.

Draco shrugged his shoulder as he sat on the chair that he had previously occupied.

"You could help me try to figure this out, Malfoy," I told him as I began to test how far I could walk. As soon as I determined how far I could go, which was about two meters, I decided to see if I could go in all directions. At the end of my little experiment, I was able to conclude that I could go in a perfect circle around—Draco Malfoy. Why was Draco the center of my boundaries? I swallowed nervously.

"Malfoy," I said cautiously. "I need you to help me perform an experiment." Draco looked at me nonplussed. "Please, Malfoy." Draco rolled his eyes but stood to his feet.

"I have a theory," I told Draco slowly. "I want you to test how far the invisible force will let you move." Draco stood up. He moved to about two meters away from me before he signaled that he could go no farther.

"You're stuck now?" I clarified. Draco nodded his head.

"What does it mean?" Draco asked as he pushed his blond bangs out of his eyes. I bit my lip.

"I think that you will be able to move in a perfect circle of two meters around me," I reasoned to him. Draco sent me a look that I could not interpret, but he moved in a circle around me.

"Yes," Draco agreed. "I can go in circle around you." I ran a hand through my hair as I sent a worried look to Malfoy.

"This isn't good," I told him.

"What does it mean? How long will we be stuck like this?" Draco rambled. I quickly ran through my options of what to do.

"I'm not sure," I told him honestly. "Walk less than two meters away from me, and let's see if we can move together." The thought of walking together did not seem very appealing to Draco, but he did it anyway. We were able to go as far as we wanted as long as we stayed within two meters of the other.

"Great," Draco said coldly. "Now what do we do?"

"I guess we should go see Professor McGonagall," I told him. "She'll know what to do." Draco nodded his head and the both of us walked carefully to the Headmistresses office.

"I guess you got your wish, Granger," Draco said snidely.

"What are you talking about now?" I asked him irritably as we carefully climbed the steps together.

"We both know that you wished for a way to be with me," Draco smirked. I did not respond. I did not recall any previous wishes, but this would definitely not have been one.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Yay! Thank you to everyone who favorited, reviewed, and alerted this story. It makes me smile.**

Stuck With You

I was stuck to Draco Malfoy. I let that sink in as I sat in the chair in Professor McGonagall's office. Draco was sitting in the chair next to me. He could not get more than two meters away from me. I let my head drop into my hands.

"This can't be happening," I mumbled.

"Well, it's no picnic over here, Granger," Draco assured me sarcastically. I peered at him through my fingers. He did not look too angry about it, but he did not look excruciatingly happy. He just looked blank. He had held the same expression since school had started. Part of me wondered why Draco Malfoy did not express emotion anymore. Part of me just wanted out of this stupid spell.

"How did this happen?" McGonagall demanded as she bustled into her office.

"We were trying to perform a healing potion for class, but Draco accidentally added Goblin's blood, and now we are stuck together," I explained tightly. McGonagall's clear eyes looked from me to Draco.

"You and Mr. Malfoy do not appear to be stuck together," McGonagall observed primly. I gave Malfoy a sideways glance.

"It's sort of an invisible bond," I finished lamely. Draco's intense grey eyes turned to look at me. I avoided his gaze as I turned to look back at McGonagall.

"Interesting," McGonagall said. "Please stand up." Draco and I stood to our feet. "Miss Granger, would you please try to step away from Mr. Malfoy? As far as you can, if you wouldn't mind." I nodded my head as I slowly backed away from Malfoy. I got two meters away before I could no longer move.

"That's all, Professor," I told McGonagall. The Headmistress circled slowly around Draco and me.

"Interesting," McGonagall repeated. "What kind of potion, Miss Granger?" I told her the potion's purpose which seemed to cause a light behind her eyes.

"The potion causes ripped skin to stick together," McGonagall stated. I nodded my head. "Well, that explains it all, then." I looked at Malfoy to see if he had caught on because I was entirely confused.

"What explains it, Professor?" I asked her meekly. I despised not knowing the answer to problems. McGonagall sat upright in her chair and directed that Draco and I do the same. We sat down and McGonagall continued speaking.

"The potion worked, Miss Granger," McGonagall said easily. I raised an eyebrow at that but let her continue. "You and Malfoy are like a wound. You've been stuck together." I felt myself start at the news.

"I see. How do we become un-stuck?" I asked awkwardly. McGonagall's lips set into a thin line.

"I'll have to look into antidote, Miss Granger," McGonagall said evenly. "I've no idea how long the antidote will take to create, but a spell will not work. The two of you were bound by a potion, so by potion you must be separated."

I sighed heavily as I considered my plight. I was stuck to Malfoy for who knew how long. This was not going to turn out well.

"What should we do, Professor?" I asked faintly as I twirled a piece of my hair in my fingers.

"Go about your day, Miss Granger. The both of you will have to sort out which table to eat at and which classes to attend for today. I will have a more solid plan by the time you both are ready to retire," McGonagall dismissed us. I walked out of the door of her office with Draco close behind me.

"What are we going to do, Malfoy?" I asked him as we walked down the corridor. "Do you want to go eat breakfast?" I was twirling my hair in my fingers as I tried to devise a plan.

"I think I would rather just go to class," Draco said stiffly. I nodded my head in agreement.

"Which class? Yours or mine?" I asked him. Draco looked at me while he brushed the end of his blond bangs out of his eyes. I thought that his hair normally slicked back with gel. It was hanging freely in his eyes now. I vaguely wondered when he stopped wearing his hair back.

"One of each," Draco said. I squinted my eyes at him.

"What?" A blush crossed my face as I realized that I had been paying more attention to Draco's hair rather than the conversation.

"We should go to one of your classes and one of mine," Draco said dryly. I nodded my head yet again as we continued to walk through the castle.

"I'd like to go to my class this morning, and we can go to yours this afternoon," I offered. Draco agreed to the plan, and we continued to walk to my Transfiguration class.

Draco and I were walking in silence when someone grabbed my arm.

"Hermione," a familiar voice said softly. I turned around to find Ron staring at me expectantly.

"Ron," I said flatly. Ron's face was stretched into a smile as he looked down at me with his deep, blue eyes. My own eyes flickered over to where Draco was standing against the wall, waiting for me.

"How have you been? I feel like I haven't talked with you in forever," Ron said softly. I felt my resolve caving as I looked into his smiling face. I wanted so badly to be angry at him for ignoring me, but, standing there looking into his smiling face, I was quickly forgetting why I was angry at him.

"No, you're right. It does feel like forever," I said tightly. Ron's bubbly smile was still etched across his face.

"Aren't you going to the Great Hall?" Ron asked in confusion as I was headed the opposite way.

"No, I'm going to class early. I'll see you later," I said as I tried to brush by Ron. He turned to watch me leave and spotted Malfoy waiting for me.

"What's Malfoy doing here?" Ron asked loudly. I closed my eyes for a moment before turning back around to see Ron.

"He's just going to class, Ron," I said simply. Ron's deep, blue eyes looked from between Draco and me.

"Why are you walking with him, Hermione?" Ron asked me. I sighed tiredly. I quickly debated telling Ron that Draco and I were magically fused together, but that seemed like it would be more trouble than it was worth.

"We're just walking, Ron," I assured him quickly. "We're both Heads. We're allowed to walk together sometimes." Draco sent me a blank stare. I grabbed him by the sleeve of his robe and pulled him down the corridor toward the Transfiguration classroom before Ron could ask me more questions. As soon as we were out of Ron's sight, Draco opened his mouth.

"Why didn't you tell him about the potion, Granger?" Draco asked me evenly as we walked down the corridor. I bit my lip as I looked up at Draco.

"What good would it have done? Ron would have been angry, but there is nothing that could be done about it. You and I are stuck together, and it appears that we will be until McGonagall can come up with an antidote." As I was talking, Draco's face bent into a smirk.

"You're glad that we're stuck together," Draco said smugly. My eyebrows knit together as I continued walking.

"Your lack of analytical reasoning never fails to astound me, Malfoy," I said shortly. Draco's countenance immediately clouded over into a glower as we walked together.

Soon, we arrived at the Transfiguration classroom. I walked up to the front of the classroom to sit in my usual seat, but Draco had stopped walking. I tried to continue to move, but the curse held me back.

"Malfoy, what's wrong with you? We need to sit down," I said matter-of-factly. Draco crossed his arms over his chest.

"I don't like the front row, Granger," Draco said seriously. I looked at him incredulously.

"Well, I do," I argued. Draco's blank face remained the same as he stood exactly two meters away from me.

"We should sit in the back," Draco's cool voice drawled lazily. I looked at him.

"I don't like the back, Malfoy. I learn best from the front of the room," I informed him. Draco raised one of his blond eyebrows.

"Don't you think that will cause problems? The both of sitting together where everyone can see? It's bound to lead to some questions," Draco reasoned. I looked at him.

"Don't you think the both of us sitting together in the back would lead to even more questions?" I argued. Draco's grey eyes held their burning stare up to mine.

"How about the middle row, then?" Draco offered. I agreed to the compromise, and we both sat down in the middle row.

"This is going to be problematic, Malfoy," I told him as we waited in silence for the class to start.

"What is?" Draco wondered as he began to pull his supplies from his bag.

"You and I being stuck together," I said dryly. Honestly, how did someone forget something like that?

"Oh," Draco said intelligently. I rolled my eyes at the Slytherin.

"I suppose that I'll have to rearrange the patrolling schedule. I'll put you and me together for patrols. I'll call a prefect meeting for tomorrow, and since you're stuck with me, I can ensure that you'll be at this one," I said snidely. Draco turned his cold, blank eyes to look at me.

"All right," he agreed. I dropped the conversation and began to focus on the preparation of the lesson. Students soon started to come into the classroom. They openly stared at Draco and me, but no one bothered to actually ask us why Draco was in the classroom. I held my head high as I waited for the professor to come.

Class passed by relatively painlessly. Professor McGonagall must have informed all the professors about the predicament that Draco and I were in, because the teacher did not ask about it.

As soon as class was over, I bolted for the door with Draco following numbly behind me. It was lunch time. I could not ask Draco to skip another meal, so that meant that a trip to the Great Hall.

I dreaded going to the Great Hall. I dreaded it more than anything at this point in my day. The Great Hall was going to be full of students, students who were full of questions. As the anxiety built up inside of me, I grabbed Draco by the sleeve and pulled him to the side of the corridor. Draco looked at me intently with a puzzled expression on his face.

"I think we should decide now where we are going to sit in the Great Hall," I told Malfoy urgently. "I really don't want to have another argument with you in front of everyone at school."

"I do not care where we sit," Draco said stiffly. "As long as it's not with your self-righteous Gryffindors." Draco gently brushed his hair out of his eyes.

"Well, I'm not sitting at the Slytherin table. They annoy me," I said flatly. Draco sneered at me, but he chose not to say anything.

"The Hufflepuffs are more trouble than they are worth," Draco observed. I narrowed my eyes at his rude assessment of the Hufflepuffs. I was in no mood to argue, so I let the matter slide.

"Ravenclaw?" I suggested. Draco nodded in agreement. After we had settled on where we were going to sit, Draco and I walked to the Great Hall. It was with no little amount of surprise that I looked at Draco as he opened the door for me. He did not seem fazed by it, so I did not say anything. It was odd, though, I assured myself. Draco Malfoy was not exactly chivalrous.

I weaved through the crowd of students until I reached the Ravenclaw table. As soon as I was there, I quickly sat down and began to shove food into my mouth. Draco took the seat next to me and gave me a disgusted look.

"Honestly, Granger," Draco said superiorly. "Don't you have and manners?" I sent Malfoy a reproachful look, which he returned.

"Listen, Malfoy," I said after I had swallowed. "The less people that see us, the better."

"Why not just tell them the truth? I thought you Gryffindors were into all that," Draco said as he slowly lifted his fork to his mouth. I knew he was going this slowly on purpose. I tried not to let it show how much it bothered me.

"The problem with the truth," I explained to him, "is that people twist it." Draco took that into consideration as he chewed his food. He was swallowed and then answered me. Each of his steps were measured with particular care. I was almost impressed by his gracious etiquette, but I was more annoyed that he could take two minutes on a mouthful of food.

"So," Draco summarized, "you're afraid of the rumors." I stopped my furious eating to look at him.

"I'm not afraid," I countered defensively. Draco sent me a self-assured look.

"You are," he insisted. I placed my fork on the table with a loud clatter. The few Ravenclaws that were seated around us looked at me in curiosity.

"You don't know me, Malfoy," I hissed at him. I quickly stood up from the table and marched away angrily. I had gotten two meters when the familiar force stopped me from moving. I looked back at Draco. He was still eating painstakingly slow. I sighed in frustration as I scuttled back to the table.

"Back so soon, Granger?" Draco said in mock innocence. I folded my arms on top of the table and let my head drop onto them.

"They are no words to describe how much I dislike you right now, Malfoy," I muttered darkly. Draco did not respond. I wondered if he had heard me, or if he just did not care enough to answer. Pretty soon, he stopped making noise.

"I'm finished, Granger," Draco announced. "We can leave if you are ready." I looked up at Draco with an exasperated look plastered across my face. I stood to my feet and walked out of the room with the blond boy. A few students turned to look at Draco and me, but most of them were too involved in their own affairs to care about us.

We were on our way to Draco's Defense Against the Dark Arts class. I was not in the mood to talk to Draco, and I think that he was beginning to pick up on it.

"Everything all right, Granger?" Draco asked blankly. I allowed myself to cast a glance in his direction. His solemn expression was still in place.

"Perfect," I said succinctly. Draco allowed us to walk for a few more moments in silence before he tried to speak again.

"What's the matter, Granger?" Draco asked again. I sent him a sharp look.

"Why are you making everything so difficult, Malfoy?" I asked him seriously. Draco looked lost.

"What am I making difficult?" He wondered. I tried to restrain myself from throttling him.

"Everything!" I shouted. "I've done nothing all day but try to work this out with you." Draco sent me a cold stare.

"This isn't exactly pleasant for me, Granger. I'm sorry if I'm a little less than helpful, but getting bound to an insecure Mudblood was not exactly high up on my list of things that I wanted to do today," Draco's cold voice yelled. I felt my body step back from Draco as though I had been slapped. He had called me a Mudblood. An insecure Mudblood, no less.

I fought back my reaction to his rude words. It was just a name. A rude name was not enough to let Draco Malfoy see me cry.

"I have to go to the bathroom, Malfoy," I said suddenly. Draco gave me a sarcastic look.

"Well, that's going to be difficult, Granger," Draco said. "I'm not going into the girls' bathroom with you." I was quickly getting fed up with being chained to Draco.

"Just wait outside the door, Malfoy," I exploded. I slipped into the nearest girls' bathroom leaving Malfoy outside.

"Granger! Don't leave me out here! What if someone comes by?" Draco's voice sounded urgent and angry. Just what I was going for.

"Just tell them the truth, Malfoy!" I shouted back. "That the insecure Mudblood had to use the toilet." There was a few beats of silence before Draco responded.

"Is that what this is about?" Draco demanded. I rolled my eyes. Draco was standing right outside the door. I had a little less than two meters to work with. I tried for the stall closest to the door. Thankfully, I was able to get into it without the invisible force stopping me.

"Is this some sort of punishment?" Draco's cold drawl whined from the other side of the door. I ignored Draco. As soon as I was done, I decided to try for the sink. I made it, but I could feel the end of my space that I was allowed. I washed my hands and glanced at my reflection in the mirror. Who was that girl anyway? I loitered in the bathroom for a few minutes, just to annoy Malfoy. I could not get very far in a room without Malfoy. How were we going to shower? I tried not to think about it. We would figure something out.

I made my way back to the door. I pulled it open only to have Draco topple onto my feet.

"Were you leaning on the door?" I asked Draco as he stood to his feet. I offered a hand to help him up, but he brushed it aside.

"I wanted you to have as much space as possible," Draco explained. At my startled expression, he quickly amended his statement. "I refuse to go into the girls' bathroom."

"Ah," I said as Draco brushed himself off.

"Are you always this moody, Granger, or am I just special?" Draco asked sarcastically. I did not respond to him, but we walked together to his class.

We sat down in the middle row without having to argue over it. I silently took my place, and Draco chose a chair next to me.

His class passed by easily. We did not acknowledge each other throughout the lesson. As soon as it was over, I grabbed my things and walked to the door. Malfoy was close behind me.

We did not speak. The corridors were empty except for the sound of our footsteps as they echoed off of the stony walls. I took in the silence as I walked to the Great Hall with Malfoy. Draco opened the door for me like last time. I accepted the gesture mutely.

We ate in the same silence. I ate decisively slower than I had eaten before. Draco seemed to be eating at the same pace as before, but I tried not to let it get to me. As soon as Draco was done, I rose to leave. Draco stood up and followed me out.

As soon as we were out of the Great Hall, I turned to head for the Gryffindor Tower. Draco stopped moving, so I had to.

"What's wrong now?" I asked him harshly as I turned back to look at him. This was the first time that I had spoken to him all afternoon after the bathroom escapade.

"Where are you going?" Draco asked me shortly. I looked up at him.

"Gryffindor Tower," I replied simply. Draco's grey eyes locked with mine.

"I'm not exactly welcome in Gryffindor Tower," Draco said. I opened my mouth to speak, but Draco cut me off. "And I know that there is no way that you're going down to the dungeons. I think that the Ravenclaws have had enough of us," I smiled a bit at that. "Let's go talk to McGonagall and ask her what we should do." As much as I did not want to, I could see Draco's point.

I nodded my agreement and followed Draco to McGonagall's office. Once we found her, we told her of our predicament when it came to sleeping arrangements, but she had already sorted it all out.

"I've arranged for the both of you to sleep in the Infirmary until you are better," McGonagall explained. I raised an eyebrow at that.

"The Infirmary?" I questioned. McGonagall nodded her wizened head.

"Yes," she assured. "I've also moved your classes around so that the both of you may attend every course that you need." She handed a new Time Table to the both of us. I quickly scanned mine. I was only going to be with the Gryffindors for half of the time. The other half we were with the Slytherins, but I did notice that I was going to get all of my classes. I felt myself sink a little in defeat.

"I noticed that you both sat at the Ravenclaw table." McGonagall's voice interrupted my thoughts. Draco nodded.

"It was the compromise," I explained faintly. McGonagall's thin lips were set in a line.

"I assume that the arrangement at the Ravenclaw table will work until we have come up with an antidote? I have Professor Vayne looking into it for you," McGonagall said. I assured her that we could live with it.

"Perfect," McGonagall said blankly. "There is a bathroom in the Infirmary that the both of you may use. Everything has been magically rearranged to be within the two meter boundary from the other side of the door.

Draco and I were sent to Madam Pomfrey at the Hospital Wing of the school. The walk there was as quiet and tense as the rest of the afternoon had been. I wanted to be able to talk to Draco, seeing as how we were stuck together for an indeterminable amount of time, but this was his fault. I was not going to let him get off without a proper apology. Soon, we reached the Hospital Wing. Draco pushed the door of the infirmary open and allowed me to enter. Madam Pomfrey was waiting for us inside.

"Good evening, children," she greeted warmly. "The two of you will be sleeping here, until Professor McGonagall can get the potion sorted out." I looked around the infirmary. I was not overly excited to be staying there, but it seemed to be the most logical solution.

"Chose two beds next to each other and just pull the curtain in between them. I'll be here all night if you need anything," Madam Pomfrey assured us. I followed her directions and chose one of the beds lined up against the wall. Draco chose one next to it. Madam Pomfrey bustled about on the other side of the room. I gently sat on the side of my bed and pulled off my shoes.

"Listen, Granger," Draco said tiredly. He brushed some of his hair out of his eyes as he covered his face with his hands. He quickly removed his hand and looked at me. I looked at him in expectation as I dropped my shoes to the side of my bed.

"About earlier," Draco began. I quickly cut him off.

"I don't want to talk about," I said snippily.

"Yes, but-" I quickly pulled the curtain in between my bed and Draco's. Still angry, I laid down in my bed in the infirmary. I was magically bound to Malfoy. This was not how my last year at Hogwarts was supposed to be. This was about the farthest thing from normal, even in a place as abnormal as Hogwarts.

My friends had not even noticed that I was with Draco all day. There had been that one encounter with Ron, but other than that there was nothing. If they had noticed than they just did not care. I could feel myself drifting to sleep that night completely alone, and the worst part was that I knew I had been alone for a long time.


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Thank you for the reviews, favorites, and alerts. Thank you for reading.**

Lies

Do you know that freshness that comes with waking up in the morning? It feels like everything that happened the previous day is not as bad as you had thought it was. That is what I was experiencing as I blinked my eyes open. The sunlight flooded the entire infirmary. I rustled the scratchy cotton sheets as I sat up on my bed. I tiredly rubbed my eyes as they blinked in the brightness. Directly in front of me, Madam Pomfrey was getting ready for another day in the Hospital Wing.

"Malfoy," my scratchy morning voice called out to the curtain beside my bed. I heard a shuffle, but it did not sound like Draco was awake.

"Malfoy," I hissed louder. "Wake up." I heard a groan emanated from the other side of the curtain. It appeared that I was successful.

"What do you want?" Draco's cold voice asked bitterly. I smiled to myself.

"Wake up, Malfoy. We need to work on our potion before class this morning," I told him. Another groan sounded.

"All right," Draco said groggily. He stood up from his bed and pulled the curtain between us. Both of us looked miserable. We had fallen asleep in our school uniforms. They were all rumpled and worn. Dark circles appeared on Draco's face underneath his eyes. He looked about as miserable as I felt, and it was only the second day of being stuck together.

"We need to change," I told Draco simply. Draco nodded his agreement. We were discussing how to get out clothes out of our respective dormitories when an elderly voice interrupted us.

"I have an extra set of your uniforms over here, children," Madam Pomfrey called in her motherly tones. I looked up to see the nurse indicating two stacks of clothes that she had placed on the beds across from us. Draco and I walked together over to where she was. We each picked up our uniforms and stood awkwardly in front of each other wondering what to do next.

"You may use the bathroom in the back," Pomfrey directed. I sent Draco a wary look before we both walked over to the bathroom.

"I'll go first," Draco volunteered. I narrowed my eyes at him, but he slipped into the bathroom before I got a chance to say anything.

I slid to the floor on the other side of the bathroom door. I could hear Draco turning the shower on behind the door. My mind pelted me with thoughts about our problem.

I was stuck to Draco Malfoy. My friends were nowhere to be seen, nor had I heard from any of them, save Ron. Ron was frustrating. He was so hot and cold in his demeanor lately. We would go for a week without talking to each other, and then, suddenly, he would address me like we are old friends. It was infuriating. Perhaps the worst part was that I forgot to be infuriated at him during the times when he acted like everything was all right between us.

I let my head fall back against the door. I was just so tired. I really should forgive Draco for his insensitive comment, and it was probably wrong to cut him off like I did last night. Those thoughts only made my head hurt worse. I hated feeling remorse over Draco, but there it was. Draco was the only person in the world who was still talking to me on a consistent basis. He was only talking to me because we were Heads and stuck together by an invisible force of a potion accident, but now even he was not talking to me. It was my fault. I was still debating how to handle the fight that Draco and I were in, when I heard him switch off the water.

I raised my head off of the door and slowly stood to my feet. I waited for Draco to finish up in the bathroom. Soon, he opened the door and walked out.

"All yours," Draco said simply. I brushed past him and shut the door.

Showers have this amazing ability to just take everything that is wrong with you and wash it away. I lathered my hair with shampoo as I was beginning to feel better. The water pounding on my back seemed to drive away all my frustrations with the world.

I could not linger in the shower, however. Draco and I needed to work on our project before classes started today. As soon as I was clean, I turned the shower off and got out.

I cast a spell to dry my hair and put on my clean uniform. With a quick and, as usual, disturbed glance in the mirror, I exited the bathroom to find Draco waiting for me.

"Ready to go?" I asked him. Draco nodded his head causing his light blond hair to fall into his eyes. He brushed it out of the way without thinking. I stood transfixed like a silly schoolgirl. Shaking myself roughly, the both of us walked over to our respective beds to get out bags.

"I was thinking that we should try to finish the potion today or tomorrow," I told Draco as I thrust my wand into my pocket. "I want to be sure that we have enough time to write the essay."

"How long does this potion take to brew?" Draco asked me. I tilted my head at him. Draco had asked me a question that was fairly friendly and school related. I took in the moment.

"I'm not sure," I said, pulling out my spell book as we walked out of the Infirmary. Draco opened the door for me, and I walked through it without a second thought. I flipped to the correct page and quickly scanned the directions.

"It says here that it could take ten hours. I think that we should check on it later today after school. I'm also calling a prefect meeting for today," I told Draco. He nodded his head.

We walked down the familiar corridors to the deserted potions classroom that we had been in yesterday. I pushed my bag under the table while Draco got out all the ingredients. I did not fail to notice that he was being exceptionally helpful today. Maybe he felt guilty about his comment yesterday.

Draco placed everything on the table in front of me before pulling a chair up to the table for himself. I checked the labels on everything making sure that we did not have anything that was not supposed to be in the potion.

"I do not want a repeat of yesterday," I muttered as I set down the bottle of beetle juice. Draco's stony face remained the same as he picked up the first ingredient of our potion. He placed it in silently, and I did the same with the next ingredient. After all of the ingredients were safely in, we took turns stirring the potion. I watched in child-like awe as it turned to a clear blue color.

"It's perfect," I breathed. Draco turned his clear, grey eyes to look at me. They burned with that intensity I was beginning to associate with them. I blinked my own brown eyes and dropped his gaze.

"What do we do next?" Draco asked me. I scanned the directions looking for the next step.

"We have to boil it slowly for the next few hours," I read to Draco. Draco gently grabbed the cauldron and placed it on a burner. He put the burner on low and then looked back at me.

"I guess we should check it in between classes?" Draco asked. I nodded my head.

"I think that we are done with it for now. We'll check on it after class this morning," I told him. We both gathered our bags and walked out of the classroom together.

The first part of the day passed by relatively easily for Draco and me. We went to class, ate, and checked on our potion. It seemed that we had come to a sort of mutual truce. We did not discuss what happened yesterday, and neither of us really wanted to bring it up. Draco remained helpful all day, and I took it as a silent apology for calling me a Mudblood the day before.

I had called a prefect meeting. We met up in the library and shuffled around patrol duties. No one asked why I had to be with Draco for patrol duty, but one of the girls from Hufflepuff sent me a rather meaningful look. I rolled my eyes and dismissed them before something happened.

Draco and I were assigned to patrol on Wednesday nights and Saturday nights. As today was Wednesday, we had to patrol the castle tonight.

"That works out well," I told Draco as we left the library to go check on our potion. "Since we have patrols tonight, we can check on our potion this evening if it isn't done yet."

"It isn't supposed to need to boil this long, is it?" Draco wondered as we entered the empty potion classroom.

"No," I bit my lip as I pulled out a spoon to stir the potion. "But the burner is old; maybe it's just not hot enough." I gently stirred the potion. It was beginning to steam, but we were supposed to wait until it was boiling.

"Maybe," Draco said uncertainly. I looked up at him as I pulled the spoon out of the potion. His face was as emotionless as ever. I wiped off the spoon carefully and cleaned it with a spell before putting it back with the other utensils.

Draco and I were walking through the corridor to the Great Hall, when he suddenly stopped me.

"Everything all right?" I asked as I looked back at him to see why I was unable to move.

"I have to go to the bathroom," Draco said simply. I huffed in irritation.

"I guess I'll be waiting by the door, then," I said as Draco slipped inside to the nearest boys' bathroom. I tried not to dwell on how odd it must look for the Head Girl to be loitering around the boys' bathroom. It looked odd.

Of course my friends chose this moment to walk by on their way to the Great Hall.

"Hermione?" Ginny's voice asked in a bewildered voice.

"Ginny!" I smiled happily. She came up to give me a hug with both Harry and Ron following closely behind her.

"How are you feeling?" Ginny asked me as she gave me concerned look.

"Yes, I feel fine," I answered, not sure why she was asking. Ginny gave me an understanding smile.

"McGonagall told us that you would be staying in the infirmary for a while," Ginny told me.

"She did?" I felt my stomach drop. What else had she told them? Did my friends know that I was chained to Malfoy for an indeterminable amount of time?

"Yes," Ginny said as she grasped my hand. "She also told us that you were having a problem with your magic." The relief was tangible as it washed over me.

"Oh, yes," I stammered. "I have been having a bit of magical trouble." Ginny pursed her lips.

"That must be frustrating," she sympathized. I thought about my Malfoy predicament.

"You have no idea," I groaned. Ginny was staring at something behind me and then looked at me with confusion on her face.

"Any reason that you're standing by the boys' bathroom?" I took a deep breath as I considered telling them that I was stuck to Draco. Maybe that would be the best thing to do, but that is not what I did.

"I'm just waiting for someone," I said awkwardly. Harry, Ron, and Ginny exchanged glances before looking back at me.

"Waiting for someone by the boys' room?" Harry clarified. I felt my face heating up.

"Yeah," I said awkwardly. "He's just inside." I pointed behind me to the door of the boys' bathroom. This was getting worse and worse by the minute.

"You're waiting for a 'he'?" Ginny asked excitedly. Her eyes lit up as she clasped her hands together in front of her.

"It's a boys' bathroom, Gin," Harry said slowly. "Of course she's waiting for a 'he'."

"Oh," I said intelligently as I realized my mistake. "Yes."

"Do you have a boyfriend, Hermione?" Ginny asked candidly. Harry stared at me dumbfounded while Ron turned a bright red. My eyes flickered between my three friends as I shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

"Umm," I stuttered as I tried to get my thoughts together.

"Oh, I see," Ginny said covertly. I really doubted that she did. "It's complicated, isn't it?"

"No," I fairly shouted. "It's not complicated." My friends all stared at me in anticipation.

"Well, do you or don't you?" Ginny demanded.

"Do I or don't I what?" I asked her stupidly.

"Have a boyfriend!" Ginny exclaimed. I swallowed hard. My eyes looked from each of my friends. Ginny's was bright with excited anticipation. Harry looked lost. Ron's face was clouded over with an emotion that I could not describe. Jealousy, perhaps?

"Oh, um," my mind flashed through the consequences of lying. "Yes, I do." Apparently my mind did not get through those consequences fast enough.

"Really?" Ginny squealed. Harry still looked as confused as ever, but he offered me a lopsided grin. Ron turned an even darker shade of red before storming off into the Great Hall. Ginny captured me in a tight hug as her happiness overflowed.

"What's his name? Do I know him?" Ginny asked me rapidly. Harry gently pulled her off of me. I shot him a thankful look, but all I got in return was his confused one.

"You'll meet him soon," I told her. "I promise." Ginny broke from Harry's grasp to give me one more hug before Harry pulled her away towards the Great Hall.

"Congratulations!" Ginny called down the corridor. I gave her a faint wave as my heart sank into my stomach. I was dead. I was so dead. I ran a rather shaky hand through my hair.

A door behind me opened, and Draco came out into the corridor.

"I heard your friends," he stated dryly. "What did I miss?"

I was dead. I was so dead.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Thank you for reading! And reviewing! And favoriting! And alerting!**

A Problem

"I'm not really in the mood to go to the Great Hall, Malfoy," I told Draco. That was not a lie. I did not want to go to the Great Hall. If I went to the Great Hall with Draco then my friends would think that he was my boyfriend.

"You aren't hungry?" Draco raised an eyebrow at me. I twisted a piece of hair around one of my fingers.

"I am, but I really want to check on our potion," I lied to him. Draco gave me a condescending glance.

"I'm starving, Granger," Draco stated. "We just checked on the potion. We haven't messed it up yet, so I'm sure that it is fine." Draco started to walk down the corridor to the Great Hall. I stayed perfectly still, and, when he got two meters away, he had to stop. He turned around to look at me.

"I don't want to go to the Great Hall, Malfoy," I repeated. Draco gave me an intense look.

"Did something happen with your stupid friends?" Draco asked me. I nodded my head. Maybe he would understand and just drop the idea of going to the Great Hall.

"Yes, I'd rather not see them," I told Draco truthfully. Draco raised an eyebrow at me.

"Listen, Granger," Draco said carefully. "We'll just slip in and then slip out. Your friends won't even notice us."

"But, Malfoy," I pleaded.

"I'm not going to argue about this with you," Draco said firmly. I held my ground at two meters away from him.

"You can't move without me," I sniffed. Draco tilted his head to the side.

"I'll carry you if I have to," Draco threatened. I felt my jaw drop open.

"Fine," I conceded. Draco fairly dragged me down the corridor behind him. I pleaded the whole time for him to rethink his decision.

"Can't we just go back to the Infirmary, Malfoy?" I wondered. "You can get a House Elf to bring you food if you're that hungry." Draco looked at me with wide eyes.

"You hate House Elf Labor," Draco observed. "Need I remind you of a little, failed operation that I like to call _spew_?" I crinkled my nose.

"S.P.E.W.!" I corrected. "And it wasn't a failure." Draco shrugged his shoulder.

"Your friends must have done something pretty awful if you want to avoid them this badly," Draco said.

"I just don't want to go to the Great Hall right now," I told him as evenly as I could.

"Life is full of things that we do not want to do," Draco said gruffly. I bit my lip as I thought about that. Draco seemed like he had been subjected to a lot of things that he had not wanted to do. I thought about it as Draco pulled the door of the Great Hall open. He gestured for me to go inside. When I refused, he pushed me through.

"I don't want to be here, Malfoy," I hissed at him in one final attempt to appeal to his humanity. Draco just brushed off the comment and took a seat at what was becoming our usual place at the Ravenclaw table. Dejectedly, I sat down beside him.

I stirred the food around on my plate as Draco ate with the carefulness that he always did. I kept my eyes firmly on my fork. I could almost feel the burning glares coming from my friends across the room. My eyes were itching to look over at the Gryffindor table and see my friends' reactions, but I could not bring myself to do it. I briefly considered hiding under the table.

As soon as Draco was done, I grabbed him by the sleeve of his robe and rushed to the door. When we were a safe distance away, I dropped his sleeve and slowed our pace to a walk.

"You really are angry at your friends, aren't you, Granger?" Draco asked me. I sighed in frustration.

"No, Malfoy," I said tiredly. "I'm not angry at them. I just lied to them." Draco's eyebrows shot up at that one.

"You lied to them?" He repeated disbelievingly as he brushed his blond hair out of his eyes. I nodded my head miserably. A sarcastic smile crossed Draco's lips. He seemed to be getting some sort of sick happiness from my pain. "What did you lie about?" My head snapped up to look at Malfoy.

"I'd rather not say," I told him quietly. Draco let the matter drop, thankfully. We were both making our way to the starting point of patrols in the castle.

There was not much to patrolling, really. If anybody was out of bed, you wrote them up and sent them back to their dormitory. It was a relatively easy, yet tedious job, and it certainly did not make you very many friends.

I cast a spell to make the tip of my wand glow as we reached the place where we were supposed to start. Draco and I began our long patrol through the castle. We didn't talk very much, just telling each other when a room was clear or not. No one was out that night, so we had a pretty easy time of it. As we came to the end of our patrols, I remembered our potion.

"Draco," I gasped. Draco looked at me in surprise when I used his first name. I had no time to dwell on that though. "We forgot about out potion!" With that I took off running down the corridor. Draco ran with me, and we blazed past room after room. Together we tripped down the staircases and finally made it to the abandoned room where our potion was brewing.

I flung the door open and ran inside. The potion had been on the burner for nearly four hours since Draco and I had checked it last. The last time that I had seen it, the potion was steaming. Fear clenched my stomach as I cautiously approached the cauldron.

Peering inside, I found a mass of blue goop that was boiling heavily. Groaning, I pulled it off of the burner and set it gently on the stone table. I frantically pulled a spoon out of the drawer of potion utensils and rapidly started stirring it.

"Do you think it's all right?" I asked Draco as I continued to whip the potion with the spoon.

"I'm sure it's fine, Granger," Draco said stoically, but he ran his hand through his hair in a frustrated sort of way.

I continued to stir the goo until it stopped boiling. The temperature steadily dropped until it was about room temperature.

"Does the book say anything about boiling the potion for too long, Malfoy?" I asked him as I cleaned the spoon with my wand and put it back in the drawer. Draco flipped the book open and thumbed to the right page. His finger traced down the book as he read the warnings inside.

"It just says that there may be side effects," Draco read out loud.

"What do you suppose that means?" I asked Draco as I stared at the goo in the cauldron. It was still a lovely shade of blue, but the directions had expressly warned against overheating the potion.

"I'm not sure," Draco admitted seriously. I looked up at Draco with the worry clear in my eyes.

"Should we just redo the potion tomorrow?" I asked him. Draco gently brushed his hair out of his eyes.

"We still have to write the essay. We don't know that the potion isn't going to work, Granger. We'll just test it in a few days," Draco offered. I raised my eyebrow at him.

"Why are we going to wait a few days to test it?" I asked him. Draco looked at me stoically, but his grey eyes were still as intense as ever. Draco opened his mouth to explain.

"In case something else bad happens to us because of these potions," Draco explained. "We should wait until this weekend to try it out. That way we will have a few days to sort it out."

I nodded my head as I saw his reasoning.

"All right," I agreed. "What should we do with the potion until then?" Without a word Draco walked into the ingredients closet and disappeared inside. When he emerged, he had his hands full with vials for the potion.

We carefully poured the thick blue liquid into vial after vial, screwing a lid onto each one. As soon as we were done, I placed all the vials carefully in a cabinet.

"I suppose that's all we can do," I remarked as I back up my bag. In my mad rush to check on the potion, I had flung it to the ground. The belongings of my bag had spilled out across the floor, and I stooped to pick them up. Draco stood lazily against the side of the table, watching with disinterest as I shoved my books back into my bag.

"You could have helped me," I reminded him, the irritation clear in my voice. Draco only shrugged his shoulder as I stood back up to my full height.

"Are you ready, Granger? I have homework to do," Draco said simply. I felt the frown forming across my face. Draco was acting a bit bipolar lately. He would be helpful and talk to me one minute, and the next he would be all aloof and secluded. I noticed that no matter what Draco was acting like, his face always remained the same. It was blank and emotionless.

Draco and I walked back to the Hospital Wing. After he opened the door for me, I flopped down on the bed that I had chosen and pulled put my homework for the day.

Draco sat on his bed and pulled out a few roles of parchment. For the most part we worked soundlessly, every once in a while the silence was broken by one of us asking the other for the proper spelling of a word or a variation of a spell.

"Hey, Granger?" Draco started off cautiously. I looked up at him as I pulled off my shoes.

"Yes?" I asked as one of my boring, black shoes fell to the ground.

"I'm sorry about the Mudblood comment. It's just a bad habit," Draco said with his eyes on the ground.

"It's all right," I said softly. Draco nodded his head and began to remove his own shoes.

When we finished, I pulled the curtain between us. Madam Pomfrey was doing something at the other end of the room. My mind was swirling with thoughts as I tried to go to sleep.

I had lied to my friends about having a boyfriend. If they had been paying attention at all, then they had seen Malfoy sit down by me at the Ravenclaw table and had probably drawn their own conclusions.

My friends had not said anything though, about the fact that I was missing in half of our classes. What kind of people forget about their friends, anyway?

I rolled over restlessly in my bed in the infirmary. Draco did not know that my friends thought that he was my boyfriend. I debated telling him. If my friends confronted him about it, then he would probably say something that would let them know that I was a liar.

If I did tell Draco, then he would wonder why I had chosen him as my fake boyfriend. The fact of the matter was that I had not chosen him. I was just making a reasonable excuse to get my friends to stop questioning me about why I was standing in front of the boys' bathroom door.

Pale moonlight fell across the white sheets of my hospital bed as I stared at the ceiling above me. I had friends who had no time for me. I had an imaginary boyfriend. I had a childhood bully who was my imaginary boyfriend but did not know it. He was magically linked to me by some invisible force, and, on top of it all, I was pretty sure the potion was ruined. I had boiled it for far too long. This was quite a mess I had worked myself into, and in the back of my mind there was a haunting voice that told me that we were not quite out of the mess yet.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: THANK YOU FOR READING! **

Experiment

The next few days passed fairly easily. I avoided my friends at all costs, but they were not seeking me out to begin with. Draco and I went through the same basic routine: get up, go to school, eat, do homework, go to sleep. There were the awkward bathroom trips, and I was still sleeping in the infirmary, but I had not expected too much from being stuck to Draco.

We had worked endlessly on our essay. It had to be three feet long, and I demanded that Draco write half of it. He complained and fought against me, but, in the end, he had done his share.

It was a beautiful Saturday morning that we were sitting in the library. We were at my favorite table editing our essay. This table was my favorite because it was in the perfect corner of the library. It was hidden behind the Herbology section, where not many people passed. The daylight would stream in from the window directly beside the table. The window overlooked the vast Hogwarts grounds and the edge of the Forbidden Forest. All in all, it was the perfect place to study without distractions.

That is unless you are magically bound to the world's biggest distraction. I sighed in frustration as I looked up from the parchment into Draco's emotionless yet somehow burning grey eyes. He had been tapping incessantly on the table with the tip of his quill. It was driving me absolutely mad.

I was beginning to think that he was tapping to irritate me on purpose. He was overreacting to the fact that I had pulled him out of his bed this morning to work on our essay. I bit my lip as I considered. We had been working for an hour and it was only now seven in the morning. Needless to say, Malfoy was not working happily with me. I decided that there had really been no avoiding it. The essay was due on Monday, and we still had to test out the potion.

I had planned to yell at Draco, when a thought entered my mind. Draco and I were sitting in a rather dangerous spot, all things considered. My friends knew about this place in the library, and that it was my favorite. If by chance they were looking for me, then they would inevitably search for me here.

I shot a paranoid glance toward the shelves of books lining the perimeter of my little sanctuary. What if my friends walked by? Did they think that I was dating Draco? Draco did not even know that we were supposedly dating. My hand involuntarily shot up to my forehead. I rubbed my temples as I considered my problem. How could I have been so stupid? One fit of jealousy over Ron and I ended up dating Draco? There was a definite need for anger management.

I sighed heavily as I let my hand drop to the table in front of me. Draco tilted his head as he took in my condition, but he chose not to act upon his observations. He continued clicking the tip on his quill in a perfect, even tempo. The fast tapping was getting on my nerves again. I could not chance yelling at him. Everyone would wonder why we were in the library together, and why we seemed to be spending so much time together, and who was the boyfriend that I claimed to have anyway? I hated humanity.

I let my forehead fall into my hand as my favorite quill fell on top of the crinkled piece of parchment that I had been working on.

"Everything all right, Granger?" Malfoy asked simply from where he sat. I looked through my fingers and at the platinum blond boy. He had stopped his infernal tapping and gently brushed his bangs out of his eyes.

"Brilliant, Malfoy," I muttered tastelessly. Draco rolled his beautiful grey eyes at me as he reached over to take our essay. He quickly traced his gaze down the piece of paper as he scanned the writing.

"Do you think that we are done?" Draco asked me. His voice held an almost hopeful tone, like a child asking his mother for a treat from the candy store.

"I think it is done," I affirmed. Draco passed the yellowed paper back to me. I carefully rolled it up before gently placing it in my bag. I rose to my feet. I wanted nothing more than to escape the library, but I was stopped by Malfoy staring up at me with his intense stare.

"Where are we going?" Draco wondered. I pushed my bag farther up my shoulder.

"I thought that we should check on our potion," I told Draco. "It is Saturday. If we test it now and something goes wrong, then we will have all day to get ourselves out of whatever mess it happens to be." Draco shrugged his shoulder noncommittally.

"I wouldn't worry about it so much, Granger," Draco drawled slowly. "I'm sure that we did fine. Aren't you the brightest witch of our age or something?" I blushed a little at Draco's backhanded compliment, but his words did not sway me. We were going to go check on our potion.

"Come along, Malfoy," I said primly as I began to walk out of the library. Draco finally decided to come with me, and we made our way down to the dank dungeon where we had stored the vials of our potion.

Draco opened the door for me, and I slipped into the dimly lit room. We walked over to the cupboard where we had concealed the potions and drew them out. There were four vials altogether. I handed one to Draco and uncorked one for myself.

"How exactly," Draco asked me uncertainly as he stared at the uncorked potion in my hands, "do we test a potion for wounds?" Instead of answering I withdrew the wand from my robe pocket. I muttered a spell under my breath while pointing the tip of my wand at Draco. As I finished, the spell sliced the palm of his hand.

"Hey!" Draco cried in indignation. I could not fight the smile that crossed my lips as I took in Draco's upset demeanor.

"It was a necessary sacrifice for science," I informed Draco calmly as he stared angrily at me.

"Pity I'm a man of faith," Draco frowned at his bleeding hand.

"It's the only way to test it," I assured him.

"I'm not testing the potion alone," Draco said stubbornly. "If I am pouring this into my bloodstream then so are you." I winced at the thought. Who knows what overheating had done to this potion? It could be nothing, or we could have completely ruined it. Draco's determined countenance was not changing though, so I had no choice in the matter.

I silently swished my wand over my own hand and watched in fascination as a thin red line split my hand.

"Are you ready now?" I asked Draco. The sarcasm was dripping from my voice, but Draco did not seem to pick up on it. He nodded his blond head vigorously and took the cap off of his vial in his hand. I took a deep breath as I poised my vial over my hand.

"On the count of three?" I suggested. Draco agreed as we both stared at our bottles of blue sludge. The liquid gently crawled toward the opening of the bottle that I was dipping down toward my palm.

"One," I breathed out. The blue goo got closer.

"Two," I said as I looked up at Malfoy. He was looking less confident than before about how well we did on our potion.

"Three," I whispered. I turned the bottle completely upside down and let the blue contents of the glass bottle fall onto my palm. The sludge slowly blobbed out and fell into my palm and seeped into my cut.

The thin line of blood suddenly started glowing. I quickly jerked my hand up to stare at it more closely. I looked at Draco to see if he was experiencing the same problems. He was staring in thinly veiled awe at his own hand as the same radiant light glowed up at him. I quickly used my one normal hand to fumble through my bag as I looked for my potions book. I did not remember it saying anything about a glowing light. I tried to flip through the pages, but using my one hand while I was in a rush was making me clumsy.

I accidentally knocked the book to the floor. Muttering about my own stupidity, I stooped to pick it up when my hand caught my attention. The light coming from my hand was quickly diming. I stared in memorization as it dimmed and then the light went out completely. I had just watched the last little bit fade away.

The next thing I knew, everything went black.


	8. Chapter 8

**A/N: Thank you for reading! It's nice to see so many people that seem to enjoy this.**

Being Draco

I blinked my eyes open slowly. My head hurt terribly, and the dim lights of the dungeon were blinding me. The ground underneath me was cold as I tried to remember why I was laying on the dungeon floor. I closed my eyes tightly as the previous events came rushing back to me.

I had been working on the potion with Draco. We had just poured the potion onto the cuts on our hands to test it. Then I remembered that there had been a strange glow, and I had blacked out. That must have been when I fainted. I suppose that I had fallen back against the dungeon floor, and that was why my head was hurting.

I heard a groan emit from the other side of the room. I decided that Draco must have fainted too. I rolled over on my side to see how badly he was hurt.

I felt my heavy eyes roll over lazily to where I had heard the sound come from. As soon as my eyes landed on the other person, I jerked back in shock. It was not Draco. I was staring at me.

There I was laying out across the dungeon floor. My Hogwarts uniform was crumpled underneath me and my bushy curls were splayed out in disarray across the cold stone. The problem was that I was watching all of this from across the room. How in the world could I be here and there? Perhaps, I had hit my head harder than I thought.

I gently reached my hand behind me to feel the back of my head for a bump or for bleeding. As soon as I touched the hair on the back of my head, I knew that something was wrong. The hair that I felt was as soft as silk. That was something that I had always craved, but I could never get my hair to comply like that. I continued checking the back of my scalp, but I noticed that my hair was far too short. My hair should have been much longer. I drew the hand that I had been using to check my head back around to the front of my body. I wanted to examine my hand for blood that might have been coming from my head.

That was not my hand. I stared down at the hand in confusion. The hand that I was looking at was much too big to be my hand. It was a man's hand. I looked at the slender fingers of the hand. There were no calluses or anything that signified this hand had contributed to hard work at any point in its life. A sinking sensation was gripping my stomach as I reached for the hem of my robe on my left arm.

With a shaky hand, I pulled back the material of the black robe that was covering my arm. All hope faded away as I realized who I was. Draco Malfoy. I was somehow in Draco Malfoy's body. I had the Dark Mark to prove it. Well, if I was in Draco's body, then who was in mine? Fear gripped me as I realized that I probably knew that answer.

I stood shakily to my feet, but Draco was taller than me, and his center gravity was not the same as mine. That being said, I stumbled over to where the other person's body was laying. I tried to keep from toppling over as I stooped down to what used to be my body.

"Hey," I said as I started shaking the other person's shoulder. Well, it was my shoulder, but I was not in possession of it currently. The girl groaned as she flitted her eyes open slowly.

It's an odd experience looking at your own eyes from the perspective of someone else. I let the irony of the situation sink in. Lately, I had hated looking at my reflection, and now I was staring at myself through the eyes of someone else. As soon as the girl was fully conscious, she locked gazes with me and instantly flinched.

"What in the world?" My voice asked me as I slowly backed up.

"Draco?" I asked. The voice sounded familiar. It was Draco's same cold voice, but I did not drawl like he did.

"What's going on?" My voice asked anxiously as Draco stared at me through my brown eyes with the confusion clearly written across his face, or my face.

"Malfoy, calm down," I directed. Draco stared at me in disbelief before raising up his hands in front of his face. When he saw the feminine hands in front of him, his worried disbelief changed to panic.

"Why am I talking to myself? Why am I in Granger's body?" Draco asked rapidly. I rolled my eyes as I stood back up to my full height. I was again surprised at how tall Draco's body was. I towered above where he sat in my body on the ground.

"Your body and mine appeared to have been switched, Malfoy," I said slowly in Draco's cold voice.

"Granger? Is that you?" Draco asked incredulously. I nodded my head. The ends of Draco's blond bangs flipped into my eyes.

"Yes, it appears that the potion somehow switched our bodies," I tried to say as calmly as I could. Draco looked up at me with big brown eyes full of questions.

"I guess we boiled it too long," Draco said simply. Part of me wanted to laugh at the irony of the situation, but the other part of me wanted to strangle Malfoy for not heeding my previous warnings that we had overcooked our potion.

"I guess we did," I said tightly. Draco shrugged his shoulder and slowly stood to his feet.

"You're short," Draco observed as he stood shakily to his new feet. I stared down at him in my new body.

"I am not. You're just abnormally tall and lanky," I told Draco. A scowl crossed his face, but he did not have a comeback.

"So what do we do to get out of this mess?" Draco asked me tiredly. I gently ran my hand through my hair as I tried to think of an antidote. I was again struck by the softness of the hair on my head. For all of his faults, Draco Malfoy had soft hair.

"Stop that, Granger," Draco said as I ran my hand through my hair again. "You're messing up my hair."

"What do you care, Malfoy?" I asked as I ran my hand through my borrowed hair one more time. "You are no longer connected to it."

"Yes, but people still recognize that body as Draco Malfoy, and I do not want to walk around looking like an idiot," Draco said snippily.

"You probably should not walk around as much as you do, then," I said shortly. Draco shot me a dangerous look, but it is hard to take someone seriously when they are inhabiting what used to be your body.

"Let's just go find McGonagall and see if she can get us out of this. I really do not want to be in your body," Draco said woodenly. It was strange hearing my voice sounding so emotionless. I walked with Draco through the castle to McGonagall's office. After muttering the password, the door swung open and allowed Draco and me inside.

"Hello, Miss Granger," McGonagall greeted. "Mr. Malfoy. What can help you with this morning?"

"Professor," I started. McGonagall looked over to me. "It appears that Malfoy and I have switched bodies." McGonagall's clear eyes widened as she stared at me and then at Malfoy. The look of surprise was painted across her face, and she made no move to hide her disbelief.

"You mean that you are not Draco?" She asked me pointedly. I shook my head causing the ends of the blond hair to fall into my eyes. How did he live like this? His bangs were annoying.

"No, ma'am," I answered. "That's Draco." I pointed one slender finger over what I recognized to be my body.

"And you are Hermione Granger?" McGonagall asked me in confusion. I nodded my head miserably. "What on earth happened?" I sucked in a deep breath.

"We were working on our potion for class. It was a healing potion for magically binding wounds together," I explained quickly. "But we let it boil too long. We had to test it before we turned it in to make sure that it worked properly. We both poured the potion into cuts on our hands and then we fainted. When we woke up, I was in Malfoy's body and he was in mine." McGonagall's thin lips set into a line once I finished my story.

"Did the potion work?" McGonagall asked simply. I felt my eyes widen. I glanced over at Malfoy who was staring at his hand. I looked down at my own hand. There was no more blood. There was not even a scab or a scar.

"Yes," I said as I examined my hand. "The potion worked." I stared at my hand in wonder as McGonagall circled around Draco and me.

"And are the both of you still stuck together?" McGonagall asked again. I jerked my head up to look at Draco.

"I don't know," I admitted. With a silent agreement, Draco and I took careful steps away from each other. We reached the two meter mark, and then we passed it. We were free from the invisible bond.

"So, the both of you can move away from each other now, but you are in the other's body," McGonagall summarized. I nodded my head again. McGonagall sat down heavily at the chair of her desk. She began to rapidly thumb through the pages of a large, archaic spell book that way lying on top of her desk.

"Do you know what is wrong with us?" I asked her as I stood awkwardly in her office. I looked over at Draco who was standing just as awkwardly as I was. It occurred to me that Draco had better posture than I did. I had never seen myself stand so straight, but now that Malfoy had control over my spine, my body was standing perfectly erect.

"Ah," McGonagall's voice broke my thoughts. I looked at her with urgency as she read out loud to Draco and me.

"You both made the healing potion properly, but it had a side effect. When you boiled the potion, you enacted. If two people take the boiled potion then their bodies are switched. It is an old war tactic," McGonagall explained. I furrowed my brow. What kind of war tactic switched the bodies of two people? I did not ask that question, though, I had plenty of others.

"How can we fix it, Professor?" I asked her as she continued to read the spell book. Draco stared dead ahead at the professor as she looked for our solution.

"The spell wears off by itself," McGonagall explained. I raised an eyebrow.

"So it will just go away?" I clarified. McGonagall nodded her head, and her dark hat fell into her eyes. Pushing it back, she explained.

"Yes, as long as both of the takers of the potion are still alive, then the spell will end at sunset," McGonagall read.

"Sunset?" My voice cracked. Draco shot me a cold look, probably for hurting his precious vocal chords. "But that isn't for another eleven hours!" I quickly checked a clock to reaffirm my beliefs. Eleven hours as Draco Malfoy. That was not a good idea.

"Are you sure there is nothing else that we can do?" Draco asked from where he stood. His voice was the dangerous calm of someone who is ravenously angry.

"I'm sure, Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall said calmly. "The two of you will just have to tough it out as each other until sunset." I subconsciously groaned. McGonagall sent me a sharp look. "Think on the bright side. The both of you aren't stuck together any longer. It will be over at sunset as long as neither of you dies."

I looked over at Draco. He was visibly shaking. When his eyes rose to meet my gaze, there was the same intensity that burned in his usual grey eyes.

"You had better not die, Granger."


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N: Thank you!**

**Being Draco**

I had an entire Saturday to kill as Draco Malfoy. The possibilities were few and all equally unappealing. I had resolved to spend the day in the library. Draco had scampered away as soon as the opportunity presented itself. I had no idea where he was going nor did I care. No one would bother me as long as I was Malfoy, and I could prepare for the meeting that Draco and I had with McGonagall tomorrow. We were supposed to have our list of inter-House activities ready by then.

I walked slowly down the steps toward the library. The only sounds to be heard were the footfalls that I assumed were mine. They sounded all wrong. They were too heavy. I sighed as I looked at the Dark Mark on Draco's arm. I never fully understood why Draco had become a Death Eater. I wondered if perhaps it had just been expected in him. I guess he could have really believed in the Dark Lord, but that seemed a bit far-fetched.

I was almost to the library when an ear-piercing shriek assaulted my ears.

"Drakey!" The shrill voice sounded as something blindsided me. As soon as I could understand what was happening, I looked down to find Pansy Parkinson wrapped around me.

"Umm, Parkinson?" I asked uncertainly as I stared at the pug-faced girl who was embracing me with too much force. Were Draco and Pansy dating? Pansy immediately jerked her arms away from me.

"Back to last names, are we, Malfoy?" Pansy asked me indignantly as she stepped away from me. An assortment of Draco's other friends had surrounded me.

"Oh, wrong move, mate," a handsome boy that I recognized as Blaise Zabini said to me. As soon as Pansy was not looking, however, he gave me a covert wink and mouthed the words "_Good job._" I kept my face as emotionless as possible.

"So, where are you going, Draco?" Astoria Greengrass asked my quietly from where should stood by Pansy.

"I was just going to the library," I said truthfully. Draco's friends looked at one another in surprise.

"What on earth for?" Pansy asked, though she still looked wounded from my earlier comment.

"I've got a meeting tomorrow. Head stuff," I said by way of explanation.

"So, then do it tomorrow," Theo Nott offered. I swallowed the retort that I had ready for him. Honestly. Was Draco really this lazy with his work? I knew that there was no way that he could be. He was second in the class behind me. He had to be at least somewhat intelligent and goal driven.

"Well, I guess I would rather be ahead," I shrugged. I wanted nothing more than to escape Draco's group of friends. They were not intimidating, necessarily, but I did not talk like Draco or act like him. If anyone was going to catch onto the switch, then it would be our friends. I really did not want to explain that I was Hermione Granger trapped in their friend's body.

"Easy, mate," Blaise said as he put his hands up in mock surrender. "We were only asking. You can do what you want. So you want to go flying later?" I inwardly winced at the thought of flying. I hated flying. If God had meant for us to fly, we would have been born with wings, not using household appliances to launch ourselves through the air.

"Tomorrow, okay?" I asked Blaise. Flying could be Draco's problem.

"Okay," Blaise agreed slowly.

"So, Drakey," Pansy asked as she twirled her finger in her hair in a failed effort to be flirtatious. "How is it working with the Mudblood?" The group of Draco's friends all leaned in to hear my response. Mudblood? Did Draco normally talk to his friends about working with me?

"It's fine, Pansy," I remembered to use her first name. Pansy picked up on it too and shot me a smile. I mentally threw up.

"It must be terrible," Pansy said with sickeningly thick sympathy. She reached out to grab my arm. I jerked it away.

"It's fine. Like I said," I said evasively, "I've got to go to the library." Snickers filled the air as Pansy huffed in indignation. I walked as quickly as I could to get away from Draco's friends without actually running.

I finally made it down to the library. I quickly worked my way to my favorite table and sat down. I pulled out a fresh piece of parchment and the list of activity suggestions that McGonagall gave us. I had just pulled out my ink well when I heard someone approach the table.

It was Ron.

"Malfoy?" Ron looked at me in bewilderment. "What are you doing here?" His eyes were surveying me with a judgmental air. I thought through my response. I would have to try to speak like Draco would if he was the one talking.

"I'm working, Weasel," that felt better than it should have. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for Hermione," Ron said awkwardly as he stood in front of me. He twisted his hands together before running one of his hands through his hair. "You haven't seen here, have you?"

"She's your friend, not mine," I said bitterly. Ron flushed as he nodded his head.

"Right, well," Ron trailed off awkwardly. He gave me one last look before his resolve completely broke. "Are the two of you together?" My head snapped up to look at the redheaded boy in front of me.

"What are you talking about?" I asked him carefully. Ron could be asking about the horrible rumor that I had started or something else. I was not going to offer him any information that he did not already have.

"You and Hermione," Ron's face blushed a dark red. "Are the two of you dating?"Oh, he was talking about the rumor.

"Um," I stuttered. This was decision time. It was wrong to lie, I knew that. It was wrong to lie for your own jealousy. I knew that even more. "Yes." Ron's head snapped up.

"What?" Ron asked. His voice was edged with something dangerous. I took a deep breath.

"Hermione and I are dating," I said as flatly as I could manage. Ron's ears turned a bright red. He quickly had his wand at my throat.

"What are you doing, Weasley?" I asked him in Draco's cold voice.

"You can't date, Hermione," Ron said viciously.

"Oh?" I raised an eyebrow. "And why is that?"

"She's mine!" Ron yelled possessively. I felt the anger flood my body.

"Oh, really?" I shouted as I stood to my feet, knocking Ron's wand away. Ron nodded his head vigorously.

"You can ask anyone," Ron said firmly. "Hermione and I are together."

"I don't think so, Ron," I said blandly. In my rage, I forgot that Draco would have called him 'Weasley' at best. "See, Hermione's told me about you."

"She has?" Ron asked. His wand faltered a bit as his hand fell back at his side.

"Yes," I told him. "She's told me that you and the rest of her friends don't have time for her anymore. She told me that the two of you don't talk, except when it's convenient for you. She told me that you didn't write her during the summer. She said that you forgot about her." Ron's head bent forward in shame.

"She said all that?" Ron asked disbelievingly. I nodded my head. The blond hair fell into my eyes, and, out of frustration, I gently brushed it away. For a second, I was struck at what a Malfoy-like thing I had just done.

"Yes, Weasley," I remembered to use her last name. At the sight of Ron's distraught look, most of my resolve crumbled. "But she says that she still wants to be your friend." Ron nodded sullenly. The both of us stood awkwardly facing each other in the library. I cleared my throat to try to break through some of the awkward tension, but it was to no avail.

"Well, Weasley," I said as I sat back down in my seat at the library. "If you're all done, I've got to get some things done." Ron nodded his head numbly. He stood around for another moment or two before slowly slinking away to wherever he came from. I breathed a sigh of relief when he left.

I was actually quite happy that I had been able to tell Ron everything that I had been feeling. It felt good to get it all out, even if it was Draco Malfoy's voice telling him everything that I needed to say. I reached into my bag to pull out my quill. I had just dipped it into the inkwell when another voice startled me. I laid the quill on the parchment and looked up at the intruder. Honestly, didn't people ever leave Malfoy alone?

Astoria Greengrass stood in front of me. Her dark hair was set in delicate curls that framed her face.

"There you are, Draco," she said calmly.

"Here I am," I said awkwardly. Astoria offered me a pitying smile.

"You weren't in our usual spot," Astoria accused, but the way she said it did not sound like an accusation. Astoria and Draco had a meeting spot?

"I was just trying to get some work done," I gestured to the parchment in front of me.

"You were serious about preparing for your Head meeting?" Astoria asked disbelievingly as she sat, uninvited, in the chair across from me. She gently picked up the list of suggestions that was lying in front of me and scanned the parchment.

"I like to be prepared," I said simply. Astoria raised her eyebrow at that, but she did not make any comment.

"What is this?" Astoria asked as she continued to read the list of suggestions.

"It's a list," I told her tastelessly. Astoria rolled her dark eyes at me.

"A list of what?" she specified. I sighed deeply. I had never really talked at length or possibly at all with Astoria Greengrass. Right now she thought I was Draco, and apparently they met with each other on a regular basis. This was just awkward.

"Professor McGonagall wants Granger and me to choose five of those events and put them on for the school," I explained to her succinctly.

"Really?" Astoria asked. She looked up at me, and her eyes seemed to glisten.

"Yeah," I said slowly. Astoria gave the list back to me with a flourish.

"A dance would be fun," Astoria said simply. I blinked slowly.

"Does that mean you want me to put in a vote for a dance?" I clarified. Astoria actually batted her eyelashes at me.

"It would be fun to go together," she said slowly. I blinked down at the paper. So, Astoria wanted to go to the dance with Draco.

"Um, listen, Astoria," I said carefully. "These are inter-House events. If we had a dance, you would have to go with someone in a different House." Astoria huffed as she sat back in her chair.

"What's the fun in that?" she sniffed. I restrained the urge to roll my eyes.

"I don't know, Astoria. It might be fun to meet new people," I offered. Astoria gave me a condescending look.

"Draco," she reprimanded. "Don't be mean. You know that there's no point in meeting people since you and I are getting married." What?

"What?" I asked her as I tried to comprehend what she was saying to me. Draco was getting married? Was he engaged? How had this not come up in previous conversation? We had been stuck together for the better part of a week. I was brought back to reality by Astoria sighing.

"You know as well as I do that we are getting married after I get out of Hogwarts," she said tiredly, as if she had said it many times before.

"Well, things change," I said awkwardly. I had no idea what Draco would say in this sort of scenario. Astoria slammed her hands down on the table and leapt to her feet.

"Draco, you know what our parents have done. We're getting married. Stop being a child about it," Astoria's calm voice did not raise, but there was an angry edge in it.

"All right," I said carefully. Astoria gave me her superior smile before leaving me alone in the library. Well, that was quite a conversation.

The rest of my day was completely wasted after talking to Ron and Astoria. I tried to prepare for the meeting, and I tried to do homework, but focusing seemed to be out of the question. My mind replayed the scenes with Ron and Astoria over and over again as I waited impatiently for sunset.

I eventually resigned myself to roaming around the castle. I was starting to get some control over Malfoy's lanky body. He was abnormally tall, and that made his center gravity way different than mine. I was finally able to walk confidentially down the hall without fear of falling down.

I walked down an obscure corridor. First years scuttled away as I approached. That was a new feeling. Were children really afraid of Malfoy? Everyone that I passed either avoided me at all costs or gave me a sort of curt nod. The nods were only from Slytherin students.

Suddenly, an arm shot out to grab mine.

"Drakey," Pansy's gruff voice whined. I refrained from rolling my eyes as the clingy girl dug her perfectly manicured nails into my arm.

"Pansy," I said calmly. "Please let go of my arm." Pansy reluctantly relinquished her hold on me.

"I miss you, Draco," Pansy's voice purred. My head was spinning. Draco was engaged to one girl who he apparently did not have a good relationship with, and here was a girl who was obsessed with him who he could not have. So far, being Malfoy was not very fun.

"I'm sorry, Pansy," I said, making sure to use her first name. "But you obviously know why we can't be together." At least, I really hoped that she did. I did not want to sit here and explain Draco's love life to Pansy Parkinson.

"I know," Pansy sniffled. "But can't you tell your parents that it just isn't fair?" How were Draco's parents involved in this?

"No, Pansy," I said tiredly. "This is the way things have to be." A tear slowly tricked down Pansy's cheek. She nodded her head in what I assumed was an attempt to be brave.

"We could just run away. We don't have to listen to your parents," Pansy suggested wildly. I looked at her evenly.

"I'm marrying Astoria," I said. I desperately hoped that I had not just destroyed Draco's relationship with Pansy, but something told me that he really did not want to be dating her anymore. Pansy started to weep bitterly.

"I guess I'll just go then?" Pansy asked me through her tears. I nodded my head, which shook Draco's infernal blond hair into my eyes. I swiped at it impatiently.

"That would be for the best," I said. I was trying to not sound callous, but it was my first time ever breaking up with someone. I thought it was going well, all things considered.

"Goodbye, Draco," Pansy sobbed.

"Goodbye, Pansy," I said awkwardly. Pansy grabbed me in a quick hug before she turned and fled down the corridor, her sobs still sounding as she left.

I breathed heavily as I turned to face the opposite direction.

"You're such a heartbreaker, mate," Blaise Zabini said amusedly as he stepped out of the shadows.

"Blaise," I said with relief. Blaise would know about Draco's relationships. "Do you think that I did the right thing?" Blaise's face twisted into a grin.

"The right thing? Draco, you've been trying to get rid of Pansy since last summer. I think this calls for a celebration," Blaise said cheerfully.

"Some other time," I said as casually as possible. At Blaise's questioning glance, I explained. "I've got to get to the Hospital Wing. I don't feel well."

"Ah," Blaise said. "Well, then by all means." Blaise made a dramatic gesture of allowing me to pass him. I did my best impression of Draco's smirk, but it felt completely ridiculous on my face.

"Hey, Draco," Blaise called. I turned around to see what he wanted. "What do you think of the Weaslette?"

"Ginny Weasley?" I asked him in confusion. Why on earth was he asking me about her?

"Yeah," Blaise actually blushed. "What do you think about her? I mean, I realize she's a Blood Traitor, but, besides that, she isn't bad, right?" I blinked my eyes as I processed what Blaise was saying to me.

"Are you talking about dating Ginny?" I clarified. Blaise's face lit up in a smile.

"Yeah," Blaise nodded emphatically.

"You know she's dating Harry, right?" I asked him. Blaise crossed his arms over his chest.

"Potter? She only likes him because he won the war. It's just a hero crush," Blaise reasoned. I openly stared at Blaise.

"So, assuming that they broke up, you would want to ask her out?" I questioned him slowly. Blaise sent me one of his dazzling smiles.

"Yeah," Blaise agreed. "I mean, that wouldn't be too weird, right? After all, you like the Mudblood." My stomach dropped.

"I what?" I asked in alarm. Did Draco Malfoy like me? Had he been talking to his friends about me? Blaise put up his hands in a gesture of surrender.

"Sorry, mate. You've just been spending an extraordinarily large amount of time with her recently. I'm not sure it's healthy," Blaise's eyes twinkled mischievously.

"Listen, Blaise," I gritted tightly. "I do not like Granger." It felt odd to talk about myself in the third person. "We are both Heads of the school, and so we are obliged to spend copious amounts of time together."

Blaise sent me a knowing glance.

"Sure, mate," he said condescendingly. "I won't tell anyone about your little crush."

"You're mad," I breathed. Blaise just shrugged.

"Let's go flying when you feel better. Have you considered that maybe your lovesick, Draco?" I stared at him vacantly while he laughed at his own joke.

"Goodbye, Blaise," I said as I walked around the handsome Slytherin boy. He was still laughing at his own humor as I escaped down the hall to the Hospital Wing. Draco certainly had a colorful group of friends.

I had no idea if when the sun set if I would faint again. To be on the safe side, I decided to go lie down. I set out to go back to the infirmary because I could not get to the Gryffindor Tower in Draco Malfoy's body.

When I got to the Hospital Wing, I found Draco sleeping in the bed that he had used during the duration of the time that we were stuck together. I passed a mirror as walked to my bed. I decided to look at my reflection.

I was used to my reflection not looking like myself, but this was a bit absurd. I was staring at the pointed features of Draco Malfoy. His grey eyes were staring back at me. They really were a beautiful color. I noticed that they lacked the intensity that they normally had. When I was looking through them, they were only grey. When Draco looked through them, they burned in soul-piercing intensity. I wondered how his face could be so blank, yet he could convey so much feeling through his eyes. Thinking quickly, I decided that I did not want Malfoy waking up to see me staring at his reflection so I moved along from the mirror and to my bed.

I gently sat on my bed and waited for the sun to set. It was rather boring to just sit there. I ended up flopping back on my bed and as my eyelids got heavier and heavier I was eventually lulled to sleep.

The next thing I knew, someone was shaking me back to reality. I blinked my eyes open and locked gazes with the grey eyes of Draco Malfoy.

"We switched back?" I asked groggily. Draco pushed his hair out of his eyes.

"Yeah, and that's not all," Draco said evenly. At my questioning glance, he continued. "We're stuck together again."

"What?" I shot up to a sitting position. Draco nodded his head and I flopped back against my pillow in despair. I let out a groan.

"I spent the day with your friends, Granger," Draco said as he went to sit on his bed. "Unwilling as it was, I did learn some interesting things. Some of the things, however, I never wanted to know. I also had to sit with the Weasley girl the entire day just to talk about our feelings. It was miserable. " I rolled over to look at him.

"I learned some interesting things from your friends too, Malfoy," I said blandly. Draco gave me a condescending look of disbelief. "When were you going to tell me that you were getting married, Malfoy?" Draco nodded his head in acknowledgement of my remark.

"When were you going to tell me that we were dating?"


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Thank you for reading!**

A Taste of Revenge

"What?" I blinked stupidly. Draco raised one of his delicate blond eyebrows at me. He looked strange sitting there on the white hospital bed. His black robes clashed with his platinum blond hair, and he stuck out amongst all the sanitary white of the Hospital Wing.

"Your little redheaded friend, the Weaslette? She told me everything," Draco said calmly. I gripped my head with my hand.

"What did she tell you?" I asked him urgently. Draco looked at me with his head tilted sideways.

"She told me how happy she was for you, of course she had her doubts about me. She said you needed to be careful if we were going to be dating. Apparently, I dangerous," Draco's face was bent up into a self-satisfied smirk. I groaned as I threw the pillow of my bed over my face.

"This is not what it looks like, Malfoy," I told him. My voice was muffled by the pillow over my mouth, but he seemed to hear me just fine.

"It looks like you lied to your friends about dating me, Granger," Draco told me. The mirth was evident in his cold voice. He was getting way too much joy out of this.

"Well, then it's not for the motives that you think it is," I tried again. My muffled voice sounded desperate even to me. I prayed that Draco would not pick up on it.

"You aren't secretly in love with me?" Draco's voice was thick with mock innocence. I instantly pulled the pillow away from my face to give him an incredulous look.

"No," I said flatly. Draco's grey eyes burned with that familiar intensity. I dropped my gaze and stared at the blankets in front of me.

"Then why did you do it, Granger?" Draco asked my simply. I bit my lip in consideration. Should I tell Malfoy? Maybe it would all just go away, and maybe Draco would let the matter drop. I chanced a glance at the Slytherin boy. He was waiting patiently for my answer. It did not appear that he would be letting the matter go at any time soon. I guessed that he deserved to know. He was my boyfriend, after all.

"I was angry," I said slowly. "My friends weren't paying any attention to me, and I wanted Ron to be jealous." Draco just stared at me with his stoic face. I had no clue as to what he was thinking.

"So, this is all for Weasel?" Draco asked me vacantly. His face was blank, but there seemed to be something strange in his voice.

"And my other friends," my voice squeaked in a defensive manner. Draco leaned back on his bed. A few beats passed in silence as we were both wrapped up in our own thoughts.

"Why did you pick me?" Draco asked candidly. I thought about that one.

"It happened by accident," I told Draco. It really had been an accident. I just said that I was waiting for someone, which I had been. My friends had drawn the conclusion that it was Draco by themselves. Draco nodded his head slowly as he thought about that.

"I don't really believe in accidents," Draco said quietly. I did not have a response to that. I threw my head on my pillow, rolled away from Draco, and stared ahead of me.

"You know that Weasel talked to me too," Draco said offhandedly. I stayed with my back facing Draco so that he could not see my reaction.

"Really?" I tried to keep my voice as bland as I could.

"Yeah," Draco's cold voice sounded. "He was pretty shook up about the whole thing. Begged you to take him back. I turned him down for you."

"I'm sorry that I dragged you into this, Malfoy," I said softly after a few moments.

"You wouldn't be able to handle fake dating me anyway, Granger," Draco said casually. I rolled over to look at him.

"I could outlast you," I told Draco seriously. What kind of challenge was this?

"I don't think so," Draco retorted. "I would be better at fake dating than you. There is no comparison." I stared at Draco with my mouth hanging open.

"You're mad," I told Draco. I sat up to look at Draco. "I would be better at fake dating. You can't even express emotion." Draco shot me a cold look.

"And you wouldn't know the first thing about being in a relationship with someone," Draco said stiffly. I stared at him as a blush crossed my face. I had been in a relationship with Ron.

"I've been in a relationship, Malfoy," I told him angrily. Draco's grey eyes stared into mine.

"And look how that turned out, Granger," Draco argued. "Weasley barely talks to you anymore." That stung more than I wanted.

"Well, at least I'm not engaged to someone I don't love," I said quietly. Draco's countenance clouded over.

"You don't know me," Draco's cold voice rang.

"I know that I am better at relationships than you," I sniffed.

"You want to bet on that, Granger?" Draco's voice rose in disbelief. I nodded my head vigorously.

"Yes, what do you want to bet?" I asked Draco seriously.

"I'll bet that you will break up with me before I break up with you," Draco explained. I thought for a second.

"Wait, Malfoy," I stopped him. "Why are we doing this?" Draco shrugged one of his shoulders.

"You need help making Weasel jealous. I'm going to prove that I'm the better actor," Draco said stoically. I nodded my head.

"So, what does it mean to 'fake-date' someone?" I asked Draco from where I lay sprawled out on my bed.

"It means that the both of us have to convince everyone else that we are dating," Draco declared.

"So I can't tell my friends that it isn't real?" I wondered. Draco shook his head.

"No, and I won't tell my friends. It will have to be like we're actually dating," Draco explained.

"And what about when none of our friends are around? Are we still fake-dating then?" I asked.

"I guess so. That will give you more of a chance to break up with me," Draco said slyly. I rolled my eyes at him.

"What are the stakes?" I asked him. Draco ran a hand through his hair.

"Loser does whatever the winner wants?" Draco shrugged. I looked at him. He was mad.

"That's a rather weak bet," I told Draco, trying not to show my discomfort. He shrugged his shoulder.

"Do you have anything better?" He wondered. I bit my lip in thought. The white sheets of my bed were crumpled at the end of the mattress from where I had kicked them in my rush to sit up straight.

"I don't really make bets," I said simply. Draco gently thumbed his hair out of his eyes as he looked me.

"So, you agree to my bet then?" Draco asked me. I reached out my hand to shake his hand when a thought struck me.

"What one earth are we doing, Malfoy?" I asked him. "I'm sure that you don't want to date me, and I really do not want to date you." Draco stared at me calmly. I wondered if he knew that his face never changed expression. It used to. I had not seen true expression on Malfoy's face in a very long time.

"Are you afraid that you will lose?" Draco asked me. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Of course not," I spat. "I was just bringing to light the fact that we are dating now."

"So you agree to the bet?" Draco looked up at me through his platinum blond hair.

"Yes, I agree," I breathed out a long breath.

"Brilliant," Draco said woodenly. "Come along then, Love. We have patrols."

What had I gotten myself into?


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: thank you for all the response on this story. I like this chapter. Thank you for reading!**

A Compromise.

The next day found Draco and me scribbling furiously on a piece of parchment. Neither of us had gotten around to thinking of the five events that McGonagall wanted.

"How could you have forgotten about the meeting?" I asked Draco as we sat at my favorite spot in the library. Draco looked up at me with a condescending sneer on his face.

"As I recall, Granger," Draco sniffed. "You aren't exactly prepared for our meeting either." I shot Draco an angry look, but there was no way that I could retort.

This was the first day that Draco and I were implementing our bet. We were in the process of fake dating each other. As the sunlight spilled through the window and onto Draco's blond hair, I wondered what Astoria would think of me dating her fiancé.

"Help me with this, Malfoy," I directed as I indicated the parchment that I was working. Our meeting was in a few minutes, and we had nothing to present to McGonagall. Draco took the list of suggestions and looked them over.

"Well," Draco said as he pushed his hair out of his eyes. "What about a beauty contest?" I felt my jaw drop open.

"That's not on the list, Malfoy," I told him as emotionlessly as I could. Draco's lips twisted into a smirk.

"McGonagall said that our events did not necessarily have to be on the list," Draco reminded me.

"We are not having a beauty contest, Malfoy. It's sick and demeaning," I told him firmly.

"You just know that you wouldn't win," Draco supplied. I restrained the urge to choke him.

"You aren't a very good boyfriend, are you?" I asked him tastelessly.

"Feel free to break up with me," Draco said happily. I looked at him for a long moment before turning back to the parchment that I had spread out on the table in front of me.

"Your fiancée would appreciate it if we had a dance," I told him blankly. Draco looked at me with his burning grey eyes.

"Would she?" He asked vacantly. I nodded my head.

"Which, by the way, how is Astoria going to take the fact that you and I are dating? The two of you are supposed to get married, right?" I asked him. Draco looked at me.

"Why are you delving into my personal life, Granger?" Draco asked me defensively. I smiled up at him.

"I guess I'm just a high maintenance girlfriend. Feel free to break up with me," I echoed Draco's previous offer. Draco narrowed his eyes before taking a deep breath.

"Astoria will be fine. She'll probably be angry at the both of us for a little while, but she will get over it. She always does," Draco assured me. I raised an eyebrow at that.

"Have you fake dated someone else while you and Astoria have been engaged?"I asked him innocently. Draco scowled at me, but he did not respond.

"So, about our list of events," I said after a few moments of uncomfortable silence.

"You pick, Granger," Draco said gruffly. "I do not care." Well, if he really did not care, then I did have a few favorites.

"I guess we will go ahead with the dance," I looked at Draco for confirmation. He gave me the slightest of nods. I wrote it down on a fresh piece of parchment and looked back at the list.

"What if we did an obstacle course?" I asked Draco. He looked at me evenly.

"That sounds like a remarkably bad idea," Draco said simply.

"Yes, it does," I agreed, but I wrote it on the paper anyway. I chose three other ideas and hurriedly checked a clock. We would have to rush to get to McGonagall's office.

Draco and I bounded up staircase after staircase until we reached the portrait door of McGonagall's office. I said the password, and we both scrambled inside.

"Hello, Miss Granger and Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall greeted warmly as she looked up from what she was working on at her desk.

"Hello, Professor," I said as I sat down at one of the chairs in front of her desk. Draco took the other one, and I passed McGonagall the parchment with my ideas on it.

"I assume that the both of you have switched back to the proper bodies?" McGonagall peered at us over the top of the parchment. I nodded my head.

"And are the both of you still stuck together?" McGonagall questioned.

"Yes, ma'am," I affirmed. McGonagall continued surveying the list.

"I like these ideas, children," McGonagall said. I felt my face light up with a smile at McGonagall's approval.

"Thank you, Professor," I said happily. I looked over at Draco, but he looked as plastic as he always did.

"When would you like to implement your first event?" McGonagall asked candidly. I sat back hard in my chair. I had not realized that we were going to be responsible for organizing the events as well.

"Oh," I stuttered. I did not want to let McGonagall down by not being prepared, but I had not thought of this.

"Halloween," Draco's cold voice rang. I jerked my head over to look at him. "We would like to have the dance on Halloween."

"A Halloween ball," McGonagall said slowly as she thought about it. "Yes, I like that. The two of you will be responsible for organizing the whole thing, but get your friends to help. Being a leader is knowing how to delegate work." I nodded my head in understanding.

"We will work on everything," I promised her.

The rest of our meeting was spent discussing patrols and the Halloween ball that we were now in charge of. As soon as we were done, Draco and I left the room.

"Thank you for that back there, Malfoy," I told Draco as we walked through the dim corridors of the castle.

"Don't worry about it, Granger," Draco said icily. I took that as a sign that Draco was not in the mood to talk and just walked beside him silently.

"Still," I could not help myself from talking. "It means a lot. I'll do something for you sometime." Draco stared at me as I made my promise.

"You really want to do something for me?" Draco asked me. I nodded my head in sincerity.

"Yeah," I affirmed. "What do you want?"

"I haven't been flying in weeks, Granger," Draco drawled slowly. I bit my lip as I looked at him.

"So, go flying," I said stupidly "You know Blaise wanted to go flying with you as soon as you were feeling better." Draco bent his head to look at me sideways.

"When was I not feeling well?" Draco asked me, bemused.

"Well, I sort of had to make up an excuse to get to the Hospital Wing, so I told him that you, or I, did not feel well," I explained slowly.

"What other things did you tell my friends, Granger?" Draco asked me. He did not seem mad at me. In fact, he seemed almost amused.

"Well, I told Blaise that you would go flying, and I broke up with Pansy," I listed.

"You did what?" Draco asked me. I sucked in a breath.

"I broke up with Pansy. She wanted the two of you to run away together, and I told her that it was over," I recounted miserably to Draco. I expected him to be upset. Maybe he had really loved Pansy all along.

"That's brilliant," Draco breathed with relief. My head shot up at Draco's words.

"You're not upset?" I asked him hopefully. Draco looked at me with wide, grey eyes.

"Upset? I'm ecstatic. I've been trying to break up with Pansy for some time now," Draco confessed. I turned my neck to look up at him.

"So why didn't you break up with her before now?" I wondered. Draco shrugged one of his shoulders.

"Every time that I tried to, she would start crying. I guess I never really learned how to handle crying women," Draco told me plainly. I shook my head up at him. So he had let me do all the dirty work.

"Back to the matter at hand," I said after a moment. "If you want to go flying so bad, then why don't you?"

"I'm sort of connected to you, Granger. It's not very exhilarating to fly in a circle two meters off of the ground," Draco explained. Oh. I prayed that I was wrong about where he was going with this.

"So, what exactly are you asking, Malfoy?" I questioned slowly, afraid of the answer.

"You're coming flying with me," Draco announced. I actually stopped walking as I stared at him in disbelief.

"No, I'm not, Malfoy," I told him flatly. Draco stared at me.

"I thought you said that you wanted to repay me for earlier," Draco reminded me.

"You just made me look prepared in front of Professor McGonagall," I reasoned. "That's hardly cause to risk my life so that you can go flying."

"Come on, Granger," Draco pleaded. I twisted one of my fingers into a curl as I weighed my choices.

"Fine," I conceded. "But you can't go very fast or high." Draco promised that he would abide by my rules and forcibly dragged me outside to the Quidditch pitch.

He pulled out one of the schools brooms as I waited patiently to get my own broom. I brushed past Draco to look through the collection of school brooms when a cold voice interrupted me.

"What are you doing?" Draco asked. I turned around with wide eyes.

"I'm looking for a broom," I said plainly.

"You don't need one," Draco returned just as blankly. I gave him a bewildered glance.

"But I thought that you needed me to go flying with you," I stammered. Draco brushed his blond hair out of his eyes.

"I do," Draco agreed. "But you won't be able to keep up with me on your own broom." I was completely lost.

"So what do you suggest that I do, Malfoy?" I asked him, nonplussed. Draco indicated the front of his own broom.

"Sit with me," he said simply. I took an involuntary step away from him.

"I don't think so," I said shakily. Draco rolled his grey eyes. He got on the broom himself and then hovered over to where I was standing.

"Get on, Granger," Draco directed. He reached out his hand for me. I took a deep breath before grasping his hand. He helped pull me up onto the broom.

"What do I do with my hands?" I asked Draco as we hovered over the ground.

"Have you never been flying before, Granger?" Draco asked me. His voice was mixed with amusement and disbelief.

"Of course I have," I replied curtly. Draco snickered at me, but he wrapped his arms around me and placed his hands on the handle of the broom in front of me.

"Put your hands in front of mine," Draco directed calmly. I did as he said, but I could not seem to focus. Draco Malfoy was, in all respects, hugging me. I thought about that as he gently pushed off from the ground with his feet.

The flight started off well, Draco and I were just barely above the ground. We sort of floated in midair. Draco did not steer the broom or try to go fast. We simply hung in the air a few meters off of the ground. As much as I detested the thought of my feet not being firmly on the ground, the ride was relaxing.

The soothing sensation was over as quickly as it came. With a sudden increase on his grip around my waist Malfoy caused us to soar straight up into the air at a break-neck speed.

"What are you doing, Malfoy?" I screeched as we continued to fly straight up. My hair was swished away from my face, and, much to my joy, hitting Draco directly in the face.

"I told you that we were going flying," Draco shouted at me over the sound of the wind. I tried to suck in a breath as we leveled off. I made the mistake of looking down. We had to be at least a kilometer off of the ground.

"I hate you so much right now, Malfoy," I told him hoarsely. Draco did not respond, instead he dipped the broom forward. We plummeted to the earth.

"What is wrong with you?" I screamed as the ground came up to meet us. I was convinced that this maniac behind me was going to kill us. Just before we made impact with the ground, Draco veered up. We coasted close to the ground at frighteningly fast speeds.

I closed my eyes and tried to pretend that I was not on a broom with Draco chancing death. It was not working.

"Relax, Granger," Draco whispered closely to me. I recoiled a little at his proximity, but I did my best to calm down.

"All right," I breathed. I focused on the horizon that we were approaching. You could see forever in all directions on a broom. I tilted my head back to stare up at the sky above us. It was a beautiful, cloudless blue. Tipping my head back caused me to lean it on Draco's shoulder. I expected him to shove me off, but he did not. I was too comfortable to be bothered to move.

We stayed like that for some time. Draco kept his arms around me, and I kept my head on his shoulder. I was beginning to fall asleep. The sky was steadily darkening, and the night air was lulling me to sleep.

"Maybe we should go in soon, Granger," Draco drawled softly. I did not respond, but as the night air continued to caress me, my eyelids grew heavier and heavier. Eventually, I stopped seeing anything at all.

When I opened my eyes again, I was being carried down the corridor toward the Hospital Wing. I subconsciously snuggled deeper into the arms that were carrying me.

"Some first day of dating," a cold voice sounded from somewhere above. I recognized it as Draco. Was he carrying me? I immediately sat up and struggled to get out of his embrace.

"Calm down," Draco said firmly. "We're almost there." I tried to focus my eyes on anything other than Malfoy. I stared distractedly at the portraits that we passed and faintly greeted the suits of armor.

Soon we got to the door of the infirmary. Draco awkwardly pulled the door open using the hand that was under my knees. I squirmed to get free of Draco's grasp, but he held onto me tightly.

"Hold still," Draco directed. "We are almost there." As I regained full consciousness, I gripped his neck tightly.

"You're going to drop me," I muttered as he passed through the doors and walked carefully to my bed in the infirmary.

"Doubtful," Draco returned coldly. "I've carried you all the way from the Quidditch pitch." I looked up in surprise at Draco.

"Really?" I asked incredulously.

"Yes," Draco said emotionlessly. "You're heavier than you look." My mouth bent into a frown.

"I offered to get down," I said superiorly. Draco just kept walking. When we came to my bed he gently deposited me on top of it. I sat up to take off my shoes and pull the white sheet over me.

"Thanks for flying today, Granger," Draco said awkwardly. I jerked my head up in shock. I nodded my head at Draco before returning the sentiment.

"Thank you for carrying me inside. Flying was not as bad as I thought it would be," I said as I laid my head on the fluffy pillow. Today had been surprisingly wonderful.

"Goodnight, Granger," Draco said softly as he pulled the sheet up to cover himself.

"Goodnight, Malfoy," I returned softly. I heard a rustle on the other side of the room as I remembered where we were. "Goodnight Madam Pomfrey."

"Goodnight, children."


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Yay! Thank you for all the reviews, favorites, and alerts! Thank you for reading.**

Winning and Losing

Monday morning found Draco and me walking to the Great Hall.

"This is it, Malfoy," I said as the nervousness coursed through me. Draco gave me a perturbed glance.

"What are you talking about now, Granger?" Draco asked me, bemused. I ran a hand through my long hair. I only had one hand; Draco was currently holding the other. We had received quite a few stares as we had walked from the Hospital Wing to the Great Hall.

"The bet, Malfoy," I explained to him. "I mean, yesterday we didn't really see any of our friends, but today we have to convince our friends that we are together." Draco's expression remained as stoic as always, but he nodded his head.

"Are you worried about it, Granger?" Draco asked me with the teasing evident in his voice. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"Of course not, Malfoy," I said stiffly. "What's there to be afraid of? Obviously, I feel that I am a better actor that you." Draco sent me one of his familiar smirks.

"We'll see about that," Draco said vaguely as he pulled the door open for me. I walked through and headed towards the Ravenclaw table. Since Draco and I were still stuck together, I had assumed that we would be eating where we had been for the past week. That idea was dissolved as Draco grabbed my wrist. I turned my eyes up to give him a questioning look.

"What's wrong, Malfoy?" I asked him hurriedly under my breath. Draco gave me a self-satisfied look.

"Well, I thought that since we were together now, you should meet my friends," Draco said simply. I caught the malice in his tone, though. He was doing this to irritate me.

"Perfect," I smiled up at him as he led me by the wrist to the Slytherin table. "As long as we sit with my friends later." I felt Draco tighten his hold on my hand.

"Brilliant," he gritted. Draco continued to pull me over to his House's table. The group of Slytherins was talking amongst themselves as Draco and I sat down. The following silence was overwhelming.

"Hello, Draco," Astoria Greengrass's prim voice said quietly. I looked over at her carefully. From my brief encounter with her, I could guess that Astoria was not going to approve of this relationship.

"Hello, Astoria," Draco said woodenly. "I assume that you all know Hermione?" Draco asked as he gestured to me. His friends all stared at me warily. I could see that none of them really approved of my being there, but, out of some obligation they must have felt to Draco, they all remained silent. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Blaise nudge Draco jovially while whispering something to him. I could not hear what Blaise said, but I could see Draco's facial reaction. Was he blushing?

Breakfast with Draco's friends was awkward and seemed to last forever. I munched my toast quietly, trying to avoid eye contact with everyone. Draco sat closer to me at the table than was probably necessary, but I did not want him to know that he was getting to me.

"So, Hermione," Pansy's nasally voice interrupted the uncomfortable silence. I jerked my head to look at her. I felt Draco tense beside me, and I admitted that I felt the same way.

"Yes, Pansy?" I asked with more confidence than I felt.

"Why are you sitting here?" She asked me pointedly. "With Draco?" Her judgmental gaze slid to Draco. His cold, grey stare did not falter as he stared back at Pansy. She seemed to become uncomfortable and dropped her gaze back to her plate. Her question still hung in the air.

"Well?" Theo Nott prodded. I looked up at Malfoy. He looked amused by the entire situation.

"Draco," I said sweetly. "Would you like to tell them?" All of Draco's friends turned their attention to him.

"Well," Draco cleared his throat. "The thing is…" Draco's voice faltered. I rolled my eyes. This is why I was the better actor.

"Draco and I are dating," I blurted out. It seemed like the entire Slytherin table was silent. Everyone was staring at me in disbelief. Draco himself looked like he was struggling to believe that I had actually told his friends that we were dating. Well, what did he expect? A bet was a bet.

"Is that so?" Astoria said emotionlessly. Her eyes were burning brightly though. Her rage was not well hidden.

"Yes," Draco said with a bored tone of voice. Astoria took a deep breath.

"If you're looking for a new boyfriend, Astoria," Theo said coyly, "I think that you and I would-"

"Shut up, Theo!" Tracey Davis exclaimed. Astoria did not respond to the rabbit-like boy. Instead, she stood to her feet, gave Draco a rather incensed look, and turned to me.

"You can be sure that my parents will hear of this, Hermione," Astoria said icily. She began to walk away, but she turned back around when she was a few steps away. "And your parents too, Draco."

The silence was once again prominent at the Slytherin table. I bit my lip as I considered the easiest route of escape. My plan was a bit more difficult, considering that I was still attached to Draco.

"Well, that went well," Blaise chimed. I rolled my eyes, and turned to Draco.

"Are you ready to go to class, Draco?" Draco gave me a snide look.

"Of course, Love," Draco replied coldly. We both stood to our feet. Draco interlaced his fingers with mine, and we left Draco's friends behind.

"I believe that I won that round, Granger," Draco whispered covertly as soon as we were out of earshot. I furrowed my brow.

"I don't think so, Malfoy," I argued. "You couldn't even tell your friends that we were dating. I won that round." Draco scowled at me, but he did not argue with my point. I rooted around in my bag for our assignment.

We made our way to our Potions class. I had our finished essay in hand, and Draco had our vials of the potion in his bag.

We took our seat in the middle row and waited for class to begin.

"Malfoy, I think that we should begin planning for the Halloween Ball," I told him as I pulled out all of my school supplies.

"I don't know why you're so anxious about it, Granger," Draco drawled slowly. "It's only the second week of school. Halloween is almost eight weeks away."

"I like to be prepared, Malfoy," I sniffed. "Besides, Professor McGonagall is counting on us."

"Granger, you're already McGonagall's favorite. You don't need to work so hard," Draco said blankly. I looked at him closely.

"Listen, Malfoy, I don't even know why McGonagall is letting you be Head Boy. It's an academic position, and if you aren't going to take it seriously, then just resign," I shrilled. Draco looked taken aback for a split second, but then his old mask of impassiveness was back in its rightful place.

"Don't act like you know me, Granger," Draco whispered harshly.

"Don't pretend that I don't, Malfoy," I returned. Draco opened his mouth to say something, but he was cut off by Professor Vayne entering the room.

"Good morning, class," Professor Vayne greeted in her deceitfully cheery tones. The woman has serious mood swings, and I was not sure if I could handle them today. The class quieted down to listen to her instruction. "I expect that you all did your assignment? Please place the essay and the vial of your potion on the table in the back." Draco and I walked to the back of the room to place our potion on the table. On the way back to our seats, we were stopped by the professor.

"Miss Granger, Mr. Malfoy," Professor Vayne told us in hushed tones. "I believe that I have found the recipe for the antidote that you need. It takes some time to brew. It's a rather complex potion."

"When do you think that it will be ready, Professor?" I asked hopefully. I did not hate Draco Malfoy, but nobody wants to spend each morning waiting outside of the boys' bathroom.

"I'm not sure, Miss Granger," Professor Vayne shook her blonde head. "I will work on it, though, and I will get it to you as soon as possible." My stomach sunk a little at the news of having to wait, but I nodded my head in an effort to be brave.

The rest of the class passed easily. We learned more about Potions and their benefits and side effects. Soon, Draco and I were walking to the Great Hall to eat. This time, I was going to make Draco sit with my friends at the Gryffindor table.

"I'm going to win this time, Granger," Draco promised me as we approached my friends. I silently accepted his challenge. We sat down at the Gryffindor table.

"Hello, Hermione," Ginny greeted warmly. "Hello, Draco." She sent me a knowing look, which caused me to blush unwillingly. Harry stared at me in puzzlement, and Ron alternated between angry and depressed.

"She-Weasel," Draco greeted curtly. I jabbed him sharply in the ribs, much to the amusement of Harry. "I mean, hello, Ginny." Draco glared at me, but I just smiled in return.

"So, Hermione," Harry cast a wary glance at me, "when did you and Malfoy start dating, or, umm, are the two of you, you know, dating?" Harry looked horribly awkward as he fumbled over his words.

"Don't talk about me like I'm not here, Potter," Draco said calmly. "Hermione and I are dating; don't be afraid to say it. We became official a few days ago." Harry nodded his head slowly as if he was processing all the new information.

"Umm, not to be rude, Hermione," Harry said carefully, "but how did this start?" I tilted my head sideways.

"How did what start?" I wondered. Harry grimaced as he considered his next statement.

"Why are you dating the ferret?" Ron demanded. A few beats of silence followed his outburst.

"Ron!" Ginny reprimanded.

"No, it's all right, Gin," I assured her. I felt an arm wrap around my shoulders. I jerked my head to look at Draco. He was staring nonchalantly at my friends with his arm draped gently over my shoulders.

"I've got this one, Love," Draco assured me. I bit my lip, wondering what on earth he was about to do.

"Okay," I breathed. Draco looked directly at all of my friends. His gaze passed between the three of them until it finally came to rest on me. His grey eyes burned intensely as he stared at me. I fidgeted under their focus, but I forced myself to look into them.

"Hermione and I are dating because she is the most amazing person that I have ever met. The fact that she is dating me proves that miracles and God's grace are real. I'm dating her because she's wonderful. She's dating me because she's wonderful. It's as simple as that," Draco drawled slowly. My breath caught in my throat. I had to remind myself that this was only pretend. Who knew that Draco Malfoy could say something so sweet? I was blushing furiously and staring into his grey eyes was not helping anything.

I broke the eye contact with Draco and glanced at my friends. Ginny had an enchanted look on her face, Harry was glancing worriedly between Draco and Ron, and Ron just looked angry. I looked back up at Draco.

"That was really sweet," I told him sincerely. Draco shrugged his shoulder.

"I guess sometimes I just win," Draco said meaningfully. I felt the frustration and disappointment rise up within me. Only Draco Malfoy could ruin something as sweet as his speech that he gave with a reminder of the competition that we were in.

"Of course you do, Darling," I said sweetly. Mentally, I was wracking my brain for a way to beat Draco. There was no way that I could think of another speech like that. I would have to do something else. Before I could talk myself out of it, I used one of my hands to tip Draco's head toward me. I gently placed a kiss on his cheek. Draco accepted my gesture silently, but, when I pulled away, he stared at me with wide eyes. I gave him a small smile.

"I win," I whispered. Draco's wide, grey eyes immediately narrowed.

"Well," Harry said awkwardly. "I guess that I'm happy for you, Hermione." He glanced over at Draco. "And you too, Malfoy." Ginny's face was stretched into a smile as she stared in utter happiness at Draco and me.

Ron was staring at me throughout the remainder of the meal. I guessed that the plan to make him jealous was working. Between Malfoy's speech and the kiss, I was not feeling as good about making Ron jealous as I thought I would. I was lying to all of my friends and, coincidentally, all of my enemies. The most disturbing part about this whole ordeal was what Draco said to me in front of my friends. His little speech was probably the sweetest thing that anyone had ever said to me. The worst part was that part of me had really wanted his words to be real, and that scared me.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Thank you!me**

Time

The weeks slowly melted by. I was still magically bound to Draco. Professor Vayne would update us almost daily on the progress of the antidote. I was more desperate now than ever to be free of Draco. This fake relationship business was starting to mess with my head. Everyone thought that Draco and I were together, and I would find myself thinking it too. It did not help to be chained to the Slytherin every minute of every day.

"Malfoy," I sighed in exasperation. "We have to work on this." We were sitting outside on the Hogwarts grounds. It was that awkward transition between late summer and early fall. The weather was lovely. Draco and I sat in the grass sprawled out under a tree. I was trying to write down all of our plans for the dance, but Draco did not seem to be in the mood to help me.

"Granger, it's only the middle of September," Draco reminded me as he thoughtlessly pulled a few blades of grass out of the ground. He tore each blade up, only to let the shredded pieces be whisked away by the wind. As strange as it was, it was rather soothing to sit here with Draco. I shook my head to get out of my reverie.

"Malfoy," I said firmly, "I want to get this done. We haven't had a dance in a while, and I want to make this a good one."

"So, make it a good dance," Draco shrugged as he repeated his ritual with the grass. I stared hard at him.

"Draco," he looked up at my use of his first name, "please help me." Draco stared at me for a few beats before reluctantly caving.

"Fine," he conceded. "What is it that you want me to do?" I could not help the smile that crossed my face as I dipped the tip of my quill into the inkwell.

"We need a theme and decorations and music. It will be a Halloween Ball," I reminded Draco. "Should we require people to wear costumes?" Draco crinkled his nose at my suggestion.

"Costumes are the worst, Granger," Draco told me blankly.

"Costumes are fun, Malfoy" I corrected him hotly.

"Costumes are just an excuse for adults to play dress up," Draco muttered. I stared at him.

"Maybe you just don't know how to have fun," I sniffed. Draco ripped a piece of grass into shreds.

"Maybe I know how to have fun without making a fool of myself," Draco said darkly. I shook my head.

"So then a formal dance?" I wondered. Draco nodded his head in agreement as he let the gust of wind blow away the grass blades in his hand. I bit my lip as I squinted in the sunshine at Draco.

"You know," I said carefully, "McGonagall will want us to make the dance an inter-House event. That means that it will have to be a rule that you come with someone of a different house than you."

"That could lead to a few problems," Draco observed sagely.

"Do you think that we should do it?" I asked him. Draco shrugged his shoulder.

"I don't see any way around it," Draco said simply. I nodded my head.

"All right," I agreed as I scratched down the rule on a piece of parchment. "What about a theme?"

"Merlin, Granger," Draco breathed as he leaned back against the trunk of the tree that we were sitting under.

"What?" I asked defensively. What was he upset about now?

"Didn't McGonagall say that we could delegate these responsibilities? You don't have to do everything by yourself," Draco sounded tired.

"Well," I explained huffily, "to be able to delegate things to people, we have to tell him what they have been delegated."

"All right," Draco said. "But why don't you worry about your part of the dance, like a normal person?" I raised an eyebrow.

"What are you talking about?" I questioned.

"Don't girls care about what they will wear and who they will go with?" Draco asked me as he looked at me with his deep, grey eyes.

"Of course I care," I admitted, a bit flustered. "I'll just cross that bridge when I come to it."

"Well, make sure that you wear something nice," Draco commanded. "I don't want to look bad going to a dance with you." I was taken aback.

"We're going to the dance together?" My spirits immediately lifted.

"Well, obviously," Draco drawled stoically. "We are Heads from opposing Houses, not to mention the fact that we are magically chained to one another. Besides, the whole school expects us to go together, so we might as well."

"Oh," I replied stupidly. Of course that was the reason. What was wrong with me? Was I actually excited about going to the ball with Draco? We sat quietly in the mid-September breeze, the plans for the dance temporarily forgotten.

I threw myself into my studies. Every time that I saw someone they would make a comment about my relationship with Draco. Ron was green with jealousy, but I was still feeling miserable.

Draco and I went through all the basic steps of a couple. We sat together at all the meals and classes. That was not very hard to accomplish considering the spell we were under required us to be close to each other anyway.

Ginny was in full support of the relationship. She still had her doubts about Draco, but she said that she was happy that I finally found someone. I tried not to take offense at the fact that she did not think that I would find someone.

Harry was indifferent. He did not like Draco, but I could tell that he was doing his best to respect my decisions. He and Draco made plans to play Quidditch one on one. I had to postpone their plans, seeing as Draco and I were stuck together. I was pleased at Harry's attempts to get to know Draco, even if they did seem like empty gestures.

Ron was angry. He was also getting a bit desperate. The problem was that he was not desperate all the time. Ron would switch between telling me that we were meant to be together and flirting with his Potions partner, Tracey Davis. As much as it made me feel bad that we were lying to Ron, it also incensed me that he was flirting with Tracey in his down time.

Draco and I were walking through the corridor one Wednesday evening. We had just come back from the library where we had had a bit of a spat.

_"Malfoy," I hissed violently. "Please stop that infernal tapping."_

_"I'm bored, Granger," Draco sighed. "You drag me to the library every day of our lives."_

_"I have to keep up with my studies, Malfoy," I replied superiorly. "Libraries are good for you."_

_"You spend way too much time here," Draco complained. "Did you ever think that your overly-studious habits were the reason that you didn't have any friends?" I slammed the book down on the table._

_"I have friends, Malfoy," I spat._

_"They aren't here, Granger," Draco said icily. "You drove them away with your annoying habits."_

_"At least I have real friends," I shrilled as loudly as I dared in a library._

_"Real friends that can't stand you," Draco countered. I stood to my feet._

_"Listen, you aren't so great to be chained to, either," I informed him. "You think that I enjoy being stuck to an egotistical boy who is incapable of showing emotion because he feels like he's too good for the world? I don't."_

Draco and I had left the library on awkward terms. We had never really apologized about the fight. We both seemed to silently agree to pretend that it never happened. I did not bring it up as we were walking to the Hospital Wing. Draco was holding my hand in his. It had become such a common thing for us that I could not actually remember at what point in our walk we had begun to hold hands.

We chatted casually about trivial things. Draco was complaining about he was not allowed to be reinstated on the Quidditch team. I avoided the topic of the Halloween Ball at all costs. I was beginning to think that Draco was starting to get frustrated by me bringing it up all of the time. I did not really need to talk about it anyway. We had planned out almost everything.

Draco pulled the infirmary room door open for me. I thanked him as I walked through the doors. I walked over to my bed and flopped unceremoniously on top of it.

"I really hate sleeping in the infirmary," I confided in Draco as I stared at the ceiling above me.

"It's not so bad," Draco countered as he dumped his book bag on the floor in between our beds.

"I guess I just miss Gryffindor Tower," I explained. Draco did not respond. I sighed tiredly as I fluffed my pillow.

"Malfoy, I have to brush my teeth," I told him tiredly. Draco groaned in anguish.

"I don't want to walk over to the bathroom, Granger," Draco moaned. "Can't you just skip brushing your teeth tonight?" I bolted upright.

"Of course not," I told him firmly. "Both of my parents are dentists, Malfoy. You need to brush your teeth too."

"Why? My parents aren't dentists," Draco replied vacantly. I walked over to stand beside Draco's bed.

"Come with me or I will cast a _Levius Corpus _and carry you over there magically," I threatened.

"Fine," Draco conceded moodily.

We walked to the bathroom. We both stood in front of the mirror to brush our teeth. Draco stared straight ahead into the mirror, but I avoided my reflection. When we finished brushing our teeth, Malfoy kicked me out of the bathroom so that he could change. I rolled my eyes at him. Honestly, sometimes it was like he forgot we were magical. I waved my wand over my head, and my school uniform melted into a pair of purple pajamas.

Soon Draco emerged from the bathroom, and we walked over to our respective beds. I pulled back the crisp, white sheets of my bed and slowly climbed in.

"Hey, Malfoy?" I asked suddenly.

"Hmm?" Draco asked from where he lay on his hospital bed.

"What if they can't finish the antidote?" I asked him curiously. Draco rolled over to look at me.

"What do you mean?" Draco asked.

"The antidote to magically unbind us," I clarified. "What if, for some reason or another, Professor Vayne can't make it? What if you and I are stuck together forever?" Draco stared at me with his cold eyes.

"That would be rather life-changing," Draco decided. I nodded my head in agreement.

"Did Astoria tell your parents about me?" I asked Draco quietly. Draco brushed the ends of his hair out of his eyes.

"Probably," Draco said woodenly.

"Aren't they mad?" I asked him.

"Undoubtedly," Draco replied.

"Are you going to be in trouble?" I questioned gently. Draco rolled over onto his back to look at the ceiling.

"I'm tired, Granger," Draco said evasively. I waited for a few moments.

"All right," I said softly. I raised my wand above my head. "_Nox_."

"Malfoy?" I whispered into the darkness.

"What, Granger?" Draco asked in an annoyed voice. I swallowed before finishing what I wanted to say.

"I'm sorry for all the things that I called you earlier," I whispered.

"It's all right," Draco said after a few minutes. "I guess that I could have been magically bound to someone worse." I smiled to myself in the darkness.

"Goodnight, Malfoy," I whispered.

I fell into a restless sleep. It felt as if I had just closed my eyes when I felt someone shaking me awake.

"Miss Granger," Madam Pomfrey called as she shook my shoulder.

"Hmm?" I blinked open my eyes to find Madam Pomfrey above me with the tip of her wand glowing.

"Miss Granger," Madam Pomfrey said. "Get up. Professor Vayne has completed the potion."


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Thank you for reading!**

A Change of Plans

The vile smell of the antidote flooded my senses as I stood bare footed in Professor Vayne's dungeon classroom. Draco and I had been forcibly dragged out of the infirmary so that we could rid ourselves of the invisible chain.

I downed the contents of the vial and waited as a tingling sensation erupted through my body. A blue light encircled Draco and me, and then it disintegrated. I blinked my eyes.

"Is that it?" I asked Professor Vayne.

"That's it," she affirmed. I tried to make eye contact with Draco, but he was staring resolutely at the ground.

"Well, children," McGonagall said impatiently. I could tell by her disheveled hair and her wrinkled robes that we had probably woken her from sleeping. I took a deep breath before taking a step away from Draco. I took another. I continued to take steps until I was two meters away from him, then I took one more step back. My foot hit the ground without the invisible rope pulling me back to Draco.

"It's gone," I said softly.

"Wonderful," Professor McGonagall said primly. She turned around to thank Professor Vayne. Draco and I were dismissed to return to our respective House dormitories. We padded silently through the castle. My bare feet were cold against the old stone.

All too soon we came to the part of our walk where we would have to go separate ways.

"Well," I started awkwardly as we neared the place where I would turn off to go to the Gryffindor Tower. I wanted to tell Draco goodbye, but that seemed sort of silly considering that I would see him at class in the morning. Still, with my friends being too busy for me, it had been almost nice to have Draco there all the time. How did you say goodbye to someone after six weeks of constant company? I prepared a long, drawn out goodbye in my head.

"Good night, Granger," Draco said without looking at me. He kept his head perfectly still as he stared resolutely ahead. I stopped at my corner, and Draco passed me by. He was almost completely down the hall before I found my voice.

"Goodnight, Malfoy," I whispered. Tears in my eyes, I ran up to the Gryffindor Tower. I climbed the stairs to the Seventh Year girls' dormitory and creaked open the door. With a heavy heart, I climbed into my bed.

I pulled the red blankets over me as my head hit the pillow. That had not gone as I had hoped. It was with these thoughts that I fell into a deep sleep.

The first thing I heard was a shrill voice. My eyes snapped open as I sat upright in my bed.

"What?" I asked groggily as I looked around the room in alarm. Everything seemed to be in order. My eyes landed on a euphoric redhead who was sitting on the end of my bed.

"Hermione," Ginny squealed as she engulfed me in a hug.

"Good morning, Gin," I choked out as the redhead strangled me.

"You're back in Gryffindor Tower," she observed happily. I nodded my head.

"I got back last night," I told her truthfully.

"You're feeling better, then?" Ginny's clear eyes searched mine sincerely. The guilt dropped like lead in my stomach. This last six weeks, Ginny had thought that I was seriously ill.

"Yes," I croaked. "I'm feeling better." Ginny rambled cheerfully as the two of us got ready for school.

"You and Draco should come on a double date with Harry and me," Ginny said as she ran a brush through her vibrant red hair.

"That sounds like fun," I said vacantly. I did not even know if Draco and I were still fake dating now that we were not magically chained together. I searched for my book bag, but I remembered that I had left it in the infirmary last night.

"Are you ready to go to breakfast?" Ginny asked me as she walked to the door.

"I'll meet you down there," I promised Ginny. She nodded her head before slipping out of the door. I put on my shoes and then ran to the Hospital Wing.

As I was sprinting down the corridors, I failed to take in my surroundings. I had just rounded a corner when I ran into someone. With a smack, we both fell to the floor from the impact. I landed on my back and bumped my head against the wall. With a groan of pain, I raised one hand to my head.

"I am so sorry," I apologized. "Are you all right?" I looked over to the other person. It was Draco.

"Merlin, Granger," Draco muttered. "Don't you know how to walk?" Draco stood slowly to his feet. He walked over to me and extended his hand. I stared at it for a few minutes before grasping it in mine. Draco pulled me to my feet.

"I'm sorry, Malfoy," I repeated. "I was just running to get my bag, and I guess I didn't see you." Draco dusted imaginary dust off of his robes.

"It's a good thing that I found you anyway," Draco shrugged. I did my best to keep my face from lighting up as the elation spread through me. What on earth was wrong with me? There was no way that I should be this happy that Draco was looking for me.

"Oh?" I asked as calmly as I could manage. Draco nodded. His hair fell into his silvery eyes.

"Yeah," Draco brushed his hair away. "McGonagall said that she wanted to talk to us."

"All right," I told Draco. "I've got to get my bag from the Hospital Wing first." Draco followed me to the infirmary where I found my bag placed on what had been my bed for the last six weeks. I grabbed the bag and flung it over my shoulder.

"Do you have any idea what she wanted us to talk about?" I asked Draco as we climbed one of the many staircases to get to McGonagall's office.

"Not really," Draco admitted.

"What if it's about the dance?" I asked him worriedly. Draco gave me a scathing look.

"I told you that you could quit worrying about that, Granger," Draco drawled coldly. "You've planned out everything. We have volunteers and almost two weeks. It will be great."

"Umm, Malfoy," I said awkwardly. "I was wondering, since we aren't stuck together anymore…" I trailed off awkwardly. Draco looked sideways at me.

"What are you talking about now, Granger?" Draco asked me flatly. I took a steadying breath.

"We don't have to go to the dance together," I rushed. "Now that we aren't suck together, you can ask someone else if you would like to." Draco stared at me for a few seconds.

"Isn't it a little late for you to find a backup date?" Draco asked candidly. I bit my lip in consideration.

"I don't want you to feel obligated," I said bravely. Draco ran one of his slender hands through his silky hair.

"I'll still go with you, Granger," Draco said emotionlessly. "We're still dating, or are you breaking up with me?" Draco raised an eyebrow at me mischievously. A small smile upturned the corner of my mouth.

"Of course not, Malfoy," I said emphatically. "But you can feel free to break up with me."

"Figures you wouldn't dump me," Draco said woodenly. "No girl had ever broken up with me before." I rolled my eyes at Malfoy's haughtiness.

"Astoria might change that," I told him. There was a clear warning in my voice. Draco just shrugged his shoulder.

"I'll just break up with her first," Draco decided. I twisted my finger around a curl.

"What do your parents have to do with this, Malfoy?" I asked him curiously. "Astoria told me that you were engaged. She seemed to think that your parents would not be fond of you becoming un-engaged."

"Don't worry about it, Granger," Draco told me seriously. I clamped my mouth shut, but I was not done with this subject. I would find out what Malfoy was hiding.

We finally reached McGonagall's office. She was waiting for us patiently inside.

"Come in, children," McGonagall called from her seat behind her desk. Draco and I sat in our chairs and waited.

"There is an exciting opportunity for the both of you," McGonagall went straight to the point. Draco and I exchanged glances. "For the first time in many years, The Beauxbatons Academy of Magic and Hogwarts will be participating in a student exchange program."

"What does that mean, Professor?" I asked her in interest. McGonagall looked at me.

"That means that two of our students will be sent to Beauxbatons for the remainder of the winter term, and two students from Beauxbatons will come here," McGonagall clarified.

"What does that have to do with us?" Draco asked with a bored tone of voice. McGonagall sent him a disapproving look.

"It involves you, Mr. Malfoy," McGonagall said dryly, "because I have selected you and Miss Granger as the transfer students."

"Why Draco and me?" I asked her in bewilderment. "Don't you need us as Heads for all of the inter-House unity projects?"

"I chose you and Mr. Malfoy precisely because you were Heads. This will be a wonderful way for our lead Gryffindor student and our lead Slytherin student to promote House unity," McGonagall folded her hands in her lap.

"For the rest of the term?" I asked her. McGonagall nodded her head. That would mean that we would not be back until Christmas. I considered the option of going to Beauxbatons. While I had not been overly impressed with the students that came to the Tri-Wizard tournament, I had always liked the school.

"So do the both of you agree to it?" McGonagall asked us after a couple beats of silence. I looked at Draco. I guess I had nothing to lose by going to France for a couple months. My friends were not really there for me at the moment anyway. Maybe I could make some new friends at Beauxbatons.

"Yes," I said succinctly. Draco nodded his head in agreement.

"Wonderful," McGonagall said happily. "The both of you will be transported there at the end of this week. You'll need to—"

"The end of this week?" I interrupted. McGonagall looked surprised by my outburst.

"Will that be a problem, Miss Granger?" She asked me slowly. I sat back in my chair.

"It's just that we will miss the dance," I complained. I hated how childish I sounded, but I had been looking forward to it for quite some time.

"But you have delegated all of the work like I told you to, right?" McGonagall asked accusingly. I nodded my head in absolute misery.

"Yes," I squeaked uncomfortably.

"And you've finished all the plans?" She said a bit more softly.

"Yes," I whispered quietly.

"Then I see no need why you and Mr. Malfoy need to be here. There will be other dances, Miss Granger. Perhaps Beauxbatons will have dances that you will be able to attend," McGonagall offered me hopefully. I nodded my head and bit my tongue to keep from saying any more.

Well, I guessed that was the end of that. I was not going to go to be able to go to the ball that I had been working on tirelessly for the past six weeks. I felt someone's eyes on me.

Draco's intense stare was fixed upon me. He had a strange look on his face. It was almost expressing sympathy before it melted back into his stoic features. I sent him a grateful smile as we listened to all of McGonagall's rules for going to Beauxbatons. I was going to spend the next two months at a French school alone with the only person that I knew being Draco Malfoy.

I wondered if my life would ever go back to being normal.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/n: So, I realize that this story has a lot of twists and turns, and we aren't done yet! Sit tight! Thank you for reading.**

Beauxbatons

The entire school was a far cry from Hogwarts. Draco and I stood outside in awe as we stared up at the Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. There is something beautiful in the medieval beauty of the Hogwarts castle, but the Palace of Beauxbatons actually glistened in the autumn sunlight.

Draco and I were ushered inside by a few of the prefects of Beauxbatons to the Headmistress's office. We walked slowly through the corridors. The halls were decorated well, but it was far more lavish than Hogwarts. Beauxbatons was very obviously run by a woman with a love for interior decoration.

The walls were a beautiful, white marble. There were moving portraits on the wall, just like at Hogwarts. These portraits seemed different, though. They were lighter and depicted happy scenes. There were not any suits of armor, but there were chandeliers that floated freely in the air. The chandeliers would move from room to room like they had a mind of their own.

The floor was not the cold stone floor of Hogwarts. It was the same pristine marble of the walls, but there was a dark pink carpet that rolled down the center of it. All of the windows that we passed were framed by thick drapes that were the same color of the carpet. All in all, the palace was brighter and airier than the Hogwarts castle.

We were led to Madam Maxime's office. The prefects murmured the password quietly to a portrait of a majestic white horse that was grazing in a field. When the door swung open, we were allowed to enter.

Madam Maxime's office was just like the corridors of the palace. It was just as bright in there as it was outside. She had a well-stocked bookshelf, much to my approval. There were shelves lining all of the walls in her office. They were filled with magical gadgets and moving pictures. I guessed from the photographs that Madam Maxime had a bit of a soft spot for horses.

"Hello, children," Madam Maxime rose from her seat to greet us. I forgot how large she was. I thought that Draco was tall, but she towered over him. I vaguely remembered that she was a half-giantess, but right then I could have sworn that she a full giantess. She was dressed in a robe that reflected the fashion of about ten years ago, and she had too much rogue on her cheeks. She smiled brightly at us, though. Her kindness was almost tangible as she reached out to shake our hands.

"Welcome to ze Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. I am Madam Maxime, ze headmistress," the enormous lady introduced herself.

"I'm Hermione Granger," I said clearly as she took my small hand in her large and well-manicured one.

"Draco Malfoy," Draco said blankly. The giantess did not seem fazed by Draco's aloof demeanor.

"As ze school is in France, your classes will be taught in French. I have prepared a spell to translate French into English when you hear it, and ze English that you speak will be changed into French," Madam Maxime explained. She pulled out her wand and said a spell. Pink magic sparks circled around Draco and me.

"I am now speaking in French; can you understand me?" Madam Maxime asked us. It was an odd spectacle. I knew that they were her words, but the way her mouth was moving did not match the words that she was saying. It was amazing. Madam Maxime had lost her accent, and her words were in perfect English.

"Yes," I affirmed. A giant smile crossed Madam Maxime's bright face.

"And you are speaking French. This is wonderful," she exclaimed. I looked over at Draco. He did not appear too impressed by the thought of speaking French.

"Now," Madam Maxime said, "two of my prefects will lead you to your rooms. You will be staying in the dormitories with other students your age. Here are your class schedules," she handed us both a piece of parchment. "Be sure to ask the prefects if you need anything else. I've told the other students to help you get around for the first few days. All right?"

"All right," I nodded. Madam Maxime called in the prefects who had brought us to her in the first place.

"We are happy to have the both of you here," Madam Maxime said sincerely. "We hope that you enjoy your time here with us at Beauxbatons Academy of Magic." I sent her a smile. She certainly had a way of making people feel comfortable. Draco was as blank as when we walked into the room, so I tried to be gracious enough for the both of us.

"Thank you," I told her earnestly. The prefects ushered us out of the room and down the corridor to our dormitories.

"The girls' dormitories are this way," the girl who was leading me pointed to the right. I nodded my head to show that I understood and turned to face Draco.

"I guess I'll see you later, Malfoy," I shrugged. Draco just stared at me with his burning grey eyes before the other prefect dragged him off to the boys' dormitories.

"I think that you will like it here," the girl said conversationally. "Madam Maxime has ordered a Beauxbatons uniform for you. She sent to your Headmistress for your size. I believe that you will find it on your bed." I nodded my head. The girl had dark blond hair, and her nose was upturned just a smidge in the most picturesque way. She seemed nice enough. Maybe she and I would be friends.

"At Hogwarts the students are divided into four Houses. I guess for organizational purposes. Does Beauxbatons have Houses?" I asked her. The girl furrowed her brow as she thought about my question.

"No, all of the students are together," the girl said slowly. "That's a strange idea to break the students up." I suddenly felt defensive.

"Well," I argued. "On the first day of school, every student is sorted by a magical hat. It places you in a House based on your characteristics."

"Why would it do that?" The French girl asked me. I tilted my head to the side.

"So that you are with people who have the same characteristics as you," I said slowly.

"But what if the other people need your characteristics?" The girl asked candidly.

"What do you mean?" I prodded. The girl set her mouth in a thin line as she considered her argument.

"What trait did you get sorted for?" She asked me.

"Bravery," I replied without a second thought. The girl nodded her head.

"Why would you want all of the brave students in one part of the school? What if other students needed the motivation to be brave or just needed someone to be brave for them?" She asked me. I was taken aback by her question.

"I don't know," I replied truthfully.

"I'm sure your school has its reasons," she smiled at me. We reached the girls' dormitory. The girl told me the password, and we entered into the room.

The common room of the girls' dormitory was extraordinary. The entire room looked like it fell out of something you would see in a Queen's castle. I reminded myself that we were in a palace.

The common room was decorated in a light, rosy pink. There were splashes of light blue that were the same shade as everyone's uniforms. There were a few chandeliers that were floating freely across the ceiling.

The Gryffindor common room was cozy with its roaring fire and its worn couches. The Beauxbatons common room was as formal and stiff as the rest of the school. There were sofas that looked like they had never been touched. I saw two girls sitting perfectly upright in a pair of straight backed chairs. There was no fireplace, just a rather expansive coffee table. I sighed a little. I loved fireplaces, but I guess in the warmer southern part of France there was not as big of a need for one.

The dark blonde girl took me to a staircase. We walked up the flight of stairs and stopped at a door with a large "7" painted onto it.

"This is where the Seventh Year girls stay," the dark blonde informed me. I nodded my head as she pushed the door open.

The dormitory that I was to be staying in was chaotic. I was used to sharing a dorm with four or five other girls. There were over thirty beds lining the wall in this one expansive room. I guessed that this was one of the downsides of not having school Houses. All the girls that were in the same grade were in one room.

One of the girls looked up and saw me. She had been sprawled out across her bed, but she bounded to her feet to come over to me.

"You're Hermione Granger," she said excitedly. I nodded my head. She clapped her hands in front of me.

"I'm sorry," I said awkwardly, "do I know you?" The girl shook her strawberry blonde head vigorously.

"No," she declared, "but I know you. You're Harry Potter's best friend. You helped defeat You-Know-Who!" The girl's loud exclamations were beginning to cause other girls to join in around us. I did not really enjoy the attention.

"Yes, I'm friends with Harry," I said quietly in an attempt to abate some of her excitement. It only made it worse. She squealed with glee and grabbed me by the wrist. She pulled me over to her bed.

"Sit down, sit down," the girl with strawberry blonde hair commanded. I did as I was told and took a seat on her bed. A few other girls also clambered on to hear what was happening. The beds next us were occupied by the rest of the girls in the dormitory. The girls were all staring at me with wide eyes.

"You have to tell us everything," one girl with dark brown hair said. I gave her a tight smile.

"That would take some time," I tried to say lightly. "The war was a rather big event."

"_The Seer_ said that you were dating Ronald Weasley. Is it true?" One girl asked as she plaited a piece of her hair.

"What's _The Seer?_" I asked instead of answering her question.

"It's the most widely read Wizard paper in France," the strawberry blonde explained. "Now answer the question." All of the girls seemed to lean in as they waited in anticipation.

"No," I told them firmly. "Ron and I are not dating."

"Who was that boy you were with?" The blonde prefect asked me. "He was handsome." I suddenly felt overly protective of Malfoy. What did she care if he was handsome? He was only going to be here for two months anyway.

"That was Draco Malfoy," I said emotionlessly.

"The Death Eater?" A girl gasped. I nodded my head.

"The same one," I informed them blankly. The groups broke out into murmurs.

"Is he seeing anyone?" One girl with a large nose asked me above the noise of the others. I tilted my head to the side.

"I just told you he was a Death Eater," I said more harshly than I should have. "Why do you care if he's dating anyone?"

"He's not a Death Eater anymore," Strawberry Blonde shrugged her shoulder. I restrained myself from screaming. Honestly, Beauxbatons girls did not make any since. They knew that Draco was a Death Eater, but, apparently, he was handsome enough that it did not matter. I was quickly growing tired of this conversation. I turned my head to the blonde prefect.

"Can you tell me which bed is mine?" I asked her as kindly as I could manage. She nodded her head. I excused myself from the group of girls surrounding me and followed the prefect.

"This one is yours," she pointed to an unused bed with a uniform carefully laid out on it. "You may put your things in the trunk at the base of your bed." I thanked her for her help before she went back to where all the other girls were still talking about Draco. It sickened me.

My bed was something that a little girl would want for her doll. The comforter on top of it was rose patterned and fell in countless ruffles to the floor. I gently fingered the uniform on top of it. It was a simple, but clean-cut uniform. It was made of light blue silk that I would have frozen in back at Hogwarts.

Strawberry Blonde had found me again and was full of questions. I wondered how Draco was faring in the boys' dormitory as I thoughtfully answered all of the girl's questions. I carefully folded my new uniform and placed it in my trunk. Tomorrow I would begin classes as an honorary student of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic.


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Thank you for all the response to this story! Thank you for reading!**

A Turn of Events...Again

I stared into the mirror at my reflection. It was the following morning, and I had just finished putting on my Beauxbatons uniform. The blue silk was nice, but, somehow, I looked completely wrong in it. I hardly recognized my reflection in the new uniform. I turned away from the mirror and went to find my book bag.

Mornings were a nightmare in my dormitory. There was a mad rush of girls crowding the mirror and giggling. I had been here less than twenty four hours, and I was positive that giggling would be the death of me.

I escaped the room as soon as I could and walked out of the common room and into the corridor. The blonde prefect had showed me where the main dining room was the day before. I walked through the maze of twists and turns until I arrived.

The main dining room was as extravagant as the rest of the school. The students were serenaded with music while they ate. I took a seat at a deserted table and began to eat my toast. I was just beginning to relax when someone came up behind me and sat down to my right.

"Malfoy, you startled me," I said when Draco suddenly appeared. Draco took a sip of pumpkin juice.

"What do you make of this place?" Draco asked casually. I thought about my answer before I spoke.

"It's different, to say the least. I guess I was expecting a French version of Hogwarts," I told Draco truthfully. Draco nodded his head.

"The students at Hogwarts might be annoying, but at least they're real," Draco observed. I tilted my head to the side to look at him.

"What do you mean?" I asked him curiously. Draco took a bite of toast, chewed it thoroughly, and swallowed it before answering. I guessed that he was still trying to aggravate me with his obnoxiously reserved eating habits.

"I mean that everyone here seems to be hiding something," Draco said covertly. I rolled my eyes at him.

"You're paranoid, Malfoy," I told Draco firmly. "These people aren't hiding anything. They might be hypocrites, but they aren't all out to get you."

"I think that the girl sitting over there is," Draco pointed to the strawberry blonde. I quickly pushed his hand down before she could notice the pointing.

"Malfoy, didn't your mother teach you that it was rude to point?" I whispered vehemently. After a moment, I cleared my throat and spoke in a normal voice. "She isn't out to get you, Malfoy. She wants to date you." Draco instantly inflated at the news.

"She does?" He asked with an emotionless voice, but I caught him staring at the strawberry blonde. He gave her an appraising look. "What makes you think that she wants to date me?"

I took a large bite of toast. "She told me," I told him as I chewed. Draco crinkled his nose at me.

"You're revolting," he admonished. I swallowed my toast.

"I don't think that you should date her," I told Draco suddenly. Draco stared at me with his burning grey eyes.

"Jealous, Granger?" Draco asked me snidely. I frowned at him.

"No, but I know that you have enough relationship problems fake dating me and breaking up with Astoria that you don't need to add Strawberry Blonde to that," I told him bluntly. Draco brushed his hair out of his eyes.

"You might be right about that," Draco agreed. We were talking casually for a few moments when a boy sat down uninvited at our table. I glanced up at him.

He was positively gorgeous. He had thick, dark hair that fell into waves across his head. It was styled neatly, but was mussed enough to look boyish. He had dark eyes that were perfectly almond shaped. I stared at him in memorization. Draco scowled at him.

"You're Hermione Granger, right?" The boy gave me a dimpled smile. I melted inside.

"Yes," I said breathlessly. I immediately cleared my throat as a blush of embarrassment crossed my cheeks.

"May we help you?" Draco asked bitingly. I turned to look at the Slytherin. He looked as calm as ever, but his eyes were clouded over with anger. The French boy cast a quick glance at Draco before giving me his bright smile.

"There's a school dance this weekend," the boy informed me. "Would you like to come with me?" Of course I would. I opened my mouth to tell him so, when Draco cut me off.

"Sorry, she can't," Draco said coldly. My head snapped over to look at him.

"Why can't I?" I asked Draco irately. Draco placed his hand gently over my hand. I looked over at the handsome boy to see if he had noticed. He had. I felt myself deflate.

"You would go to a dance without your boyfriend?" Draco questioned with mock innocence. My heart sank at his question.

"We're still doing that?" I whispered covertly to him. Draco raised an eyebrow.

"Unless you're breaking up with me," Draco said as he grasped my hand tighter. The handsome, French boy was watching our spectacle in fascination. I took a deep breath as I turned back to the dark haired boy.

"It seems that I am unavailable that evening," I told him sadly. "Thank you for asking."

"Well, should you become available," he cast a glance at Draco, "let me know." He stood to his feet and went to go sit at another table. Draco's scowl followed after him.

"And to think you almost went to a dance with that git," Draco said. He was still in possession of my hand. I wondered if he noticed.

"Now I'm stuck going to the dance with you," I countered. Draco looked at me with his grey eyes.

"I'm not going to some stupid Beauxbatons dance, Granger," Draco informed me coldly. My mouth dropped open.

"Then why did you tell him that I was unavailable?" I shrilled. Draco shrugged his shoulder.

"I'm a jealous boyfriend. Break up with me," he smirked. I narrowed my eyes at him.

"I have to get to class," I said as I stood to my feet. Draco nodded his head and stood up as well. I openly stared at him.

"Any particular reason that you're staring at me, Granger?" Draco drawled frostily. I continued my gaping as I took in Draco's appearance.

For the first time, that I was aware of, Draco Malfoy was wearing something other than black. He was wearing his light blue silk uniform. He looked dashing, but he looked completely out of place.

"Just taking in your appearance," I explained as I continued to look at him. Draco was quickly getting annoyed so I tried to mask my awe.

"I hate these uniforms," Draco muttered darkly. I grabbed my bag off of the floor.

"You look fine, Malfoy," I assured him. I stole another glance at him, but this time was simply for admiration. The light blue silk offset his blonde hair perfectly. His grey eyes glimmered prettily from under his bangs.

He turned around when he must have sensed me staring at him. I quickly dropped my eyes to the floor.

"Do we have the same time schedule?" I asked him as we walked out of the main dining room. Draco dug his time table out of his bag and held it up to mine.

"Looks that way," Draco drawled. I folded the piece of paper and shoved it in my bag.

"How is it in the boys' dormitory?" I asked Malfoy conversationally as we walked down the marble corridor. Draco shrugged his shoulder noncommittally.

"Boring," Draco said coldly. I nodded my head in agreement. "Sometimes I wish that I could turn off the translating spell." Draco stared glumly at the ground.

"Have you made any friends?" I asked him plainly. Draco sent me an odd look.

"Why would I care about friends, Granger? We'll be leaving in a couple months anyway," Draco drawled. I bit my lip in consideration.

"It doesn't hurt to have friends, Malfoy," I told Draco quietly. Draco shrugged his shoulder.

"I just don't like this school," Draco said stoically. I thought about that. I guess I agreed. Beauxbatons was not what I had expected. I was not willing to quit on it yet, though. Draco and I walked silently to our classroom. We got lost a few times, but the other students kindly pointed us in the right direction.

We arrived at our first class. I sat in the second row on the right side, but Draco sat on the back row on the left side. I was fairly disappointed that he had not chosen to sit by me.

The class went well, but it felt like everything that we were learning were all things that I had learned in Sixth Year. I got bored quickly. I leaned my head on my hand as I fought to keep my eyes open. The girls had kept me up late into the night with their pestering questions. I blinked in surprise as I piece of paper hit me in the head. The crumpled ball of paper fell onto the desk in front of me.

I unfolded the paper. It appeared to be a flier for an upcoming Beauty pageant. Apparently, Beauxbatons was holding a pageant at the end of this week. I raised an eyebrow in confusion. Why would someone send this to me? I turned the paper over. There on the backside, someone had scribbled a note.

"_A bloke just handed this to me. As much as I dislike this school, I have found Beauxbatons's one redeeming factor. They have the beauty pageant that I proposed for the unity of Hogwarts, D.M."_

I leaned back into my chair to look at Draco. He was staring determinedly ahead, not bothering to acknowledge me. I picked up my quill and scratched down my own note.

"_Beauty pageants are as demeaning here as they are in Hogwarts, Malfoy. I cannot believe that a place of academic learning would stoop so low."_

I folded the flier carefully and picked up my wand. Using a simple spell, I lifted the paper into the air and floated the paper past other students and onto Draco's desk. He unfolded the paper, read my note quickly, and then wrote something down. I waited patiently for him to send the note back to me. It arrived soon enough. I made sure that the professor was not watching before I unfolded the paper.

"_So I take it that you will not be entering. Scared you'll lose, Granger?" _

I bit my lip as I prepared my answer. I normally would never pass a note in class, but seeing as I knew this material, my better judgment did not put up much of fight.

"_Would you enter a beauty pageant, Malfoy? I don't think that you should be so quick to judge."_

I sent the paper to Draco. He looked at me with a smirk. The next moment I received another message.

"_I don't have the same insecurities issues as you, Granger. Not only would I enter the pageant, but I would win." _

I smiled to myself as I wrote my message. I had quite a surprise in store for Draco.

"_Well then, Malfoy, I'll take you up on that. Because this isn't a girl's beauty pageant. It's for boys."_

Draco looked at me with a perturbed expression as soon as he finished reading. His grey eyes were wide as he flipped the page over to read it again.

"_How do you know that? The flier is in French. The translating spell doesn't work for written words."_

I was grinning now. I had to keep myself from full-out laughing as I penned my answer to Draco.

"_I went to France every summer with my parents all through my childhood. I picked up a few words. Including the word 'male' which directly precedes the word 'pageant' just so you know. I'll understand if you back out of the pageant on me."_

I floated the paper to Draco. As soon as it reached him, he ripped it open to read it rabidly. His face froze in horror as he stared at my message. His face blanched, and the emotion faded away as he wrote back to me.

"_Who said anything about backing out?" _

I looked at Draco in surprise. He was staring right back at me with his intense grey eyes. I dipped the tip of my quill into the ink.

"_You're going to enter the pageant?" _

I quickly flew the paper back to Malfoy. His familiar smirk was in place as he scribbled down his reply to me.

"_No, Granger. I'm going to win this pageant."_


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Yes, I did just put Draco into a beauty pageant. I regret nothing. Thank you for reading!**

Skin Deep

The male beauty pageant was set for Halloween. Beauxbatons would be celebrating the holiday with the pageant, followed by a dance. The Seventh Year girls' dormitory was alive with activity. There were girls everywhere as they ran about to get ready.

The pageant was a formal event as it preceded the dance. I had no plans to go to the dance, since no one had asked me after Draco scared off the handsome boy. Nobody wanted to be a wallflower at their school dance; besides, I had nothing to wear. I had decided to go to the pageant in my blue silk uniform. I grabbed my bag and headed for the door.

"You're not going in that are you?"The strawberry blonde eyed me as I passed her on the way to the door. I looked down self-consciously at my Beauxbatons uniform.

"Yes," I replied, but it came out as more of a question. Strawberry Blonde shook her head.

"You can't possibly go to the dance wearing that," she chided. I bit my lip.

"I wasn't going to go to the dance," I confessed. Strawberry Blonde tilted her head.

"You have to!" she exclaimed. "All of the boys know who you are. They will all want to dance with you." I shook my head.

"They might not, and no one asked me to the dance. I'd rather not stand around by myself watching everyone else dance," I argued reasonably. Strawberry Blonde appraised my uniform.

"Well, the pageant is a formal event," Strawberry Blonde countered. I sighed heavily.

"It's kind of a joke, isn't it? I mean, how formal can a beauty pageant for boys actually be?" I asked her seriously. Strawberry Blonde tipped her head back as she let out a tinkering laugh.

"Of course it's a joke, but it's still the biggest event of the year. Everyone comes to the pageant, and the dance is the best part. Come along, I've got something you can wear," the strawberry blonde girl grasped my wrist in her hand as she pulled me over to her trunk.

"But I'm not going to the dance," I reminded her.

"Then you can just look nice for the pageant. Who knows? A boy from the pageant might ask you to stay with him at the dance," the girl with strawberry blonde hair winked at me. I nodded my head as she dug roughly through her trunk.

"Ah," she said triumphantly, "here it is." She pulled out an elegant grey dress. I took the dress from her and gently held it up to my body. When the light hit it just right, the dress would twinkle a pretty silver color. It was vaguely reminiscent of Draco's eyes. It fell all the way down and lightly brushed the floor. I smiled to myself as I looked back to the girl.

"It's perfect," I confessed. The girl's face erupted into a blissful smile as she clasped her hands together in front of herself.

"Wonderful," she squealed. "May I style your hair? There are a few spells that I have been dying to try on it." The girl carefully picked up a single curl of my hair and examined it closely.

"I suppose that would be all right," I agreed. Strawberry Blonde smiled brightly and made me sit on the edge of her bed.

She tried many spells on my hair. At first she tried to straighten it, but my hair was far too thick and frizzy.

"Hmm," she hummed to herself. "Maybe straightening it was the wrong way to go." She said another spell and my hair curled into perfect ringlets.

"How did you do this?" I asked in awe as I pulled one of the curls forward to look at it. "I can never get my hair to cooperate." The girl with the strawberry blonde hair smiled again.

"I've learned a few spells," she said happily. After that she began to twist some of my hair back so that half of it was up in an intricate knot, and half of it was left to hang in delicate curls down my back.

"So," she began as she pinned my dark tresses up. "Do you know Draco Malfoy personally?" I sighed a little. I should have known that she would ask me about him. I had known that she liked him.

"Yes, I know him," I told her tightly. "We are Heads of Hogwarts."

"So you've spent a lot of time with him, then?" Strawberry Blonde asked excitedly. I laughed a little at her statement.

"More than I would have liked," I smiled as I remembered the six weeks that I had spent chained to Draco by an invisible force.

"So then he will be at this pageant?" The girl asked as she carefully pushed another pin into my hair.

"He's going to be in it," I corrected softly. Strawberry Blonde tipped her head back to laugh.

"I wouldn't have guessed that he would be a pageant boy," the girls said with the mirth heavy in her voice.

"I think it sort of turned into a challenge," I told her. The girl nodded her head in understanding.

"Ah, the competitive sort," she observed as she twisted another piece of my hair.

"To say the very least," I agreed.

"So do you like him?" Strawberry Blonde said casually. I swallowed before I answered.

"No," I breathed.

"Oh, that's a pity. I thought that the two of you would make a cute couple," the girl shrugged her shoulder. I sat upright.

"You did?" I asked her urgently. The girl smiled earnestly.

"I did," she confirmed. "I still do, actually. I saw the two of you in the main dining room. You both eat together for every meal." I thought about that.

"Well, that is true, but you have to take into consideration that Draco and I are the only people that the other actually knows. Our options are rather limited," I told her truthfully. The girl carefully cast a spell over my hair to keep it in place.

"I still think that the two of you would work well together," the strawberry blonde girl said assuredly. I bit my lip as she finished up with my hair. All this time, I had thought that the girl liked Draco. It turned out that she had thought we should be together. I felt a little guilty for being so defensive over Draco, but there was no way that I could voice that Strawberry Blonde.

"There," she said excitedly. "You are done. Now for your makeup."

"My makeup?" I asked nervously. I had nothing against makeup, but as I looked up at the girl in front of me, I grew increasingly wary. She had quite a bit of bright, glittery eye shadow spread over her eyes. There was a bright red lipstick smeared over her lips that clashed with her light red hair. She looked pretty, in a way, but she looked way overdone. I did not want to look like a clown.

"Yes, your hair looks great, and the dress will look perfect on you. You have to let me apply some makeup," the girl pleaded. I could feel my resolve caving. She had already done so much for me, and it all looked good. I guessed that if the makeup looked bad enough, I could wash it off in the bathroom.

"All right," I conceded. The girl clapped her hands together, a habit that was growing steadily annoying. I bravely flashed a smile as she ran off to get her makeup supplies.

"I could apply it magically, but I think that it turns out better by hand," the girl explained as she uncapped a tube of mascara. "Not to mention, it's more fun."

I tried not to blink as she applied the black gunk to my lashes. She was patient with me, though, even as my lashed continued to fluttered closed involuntarily. She carefully brushed my face with poured and smeared a light pink gloss on my lips.

"There," she said. She finished applying the rest of makeup. "Go put on your dress."

"I want to see my makeup and my hair first," I said.

"No, you have to see the entire thing all at once. Hurry up. The pageant starts soon," the girl directed. I slipped obediently out of my uniform and gently glided into the dress. The girl was looking through her trunk again. I had just zipped myself up when she emerged from the large, wooden box.

"You look perfect," she said whimsically. "Here put these on." She handed me a pair of glass slippers. I stared at them in wonder.

"I thought these only existed in story books," I whispered in amazement. The girl sent me a smile.

"I've charmed them to be comfortable. Dancing on glass is not exactly preferred," she said happily. I frowned at her.

"I'm not going to the dance," I said stubbornly, but I slipped my feet into the shoes.

"You should look at your reflection," the girl said. "Some of the boys might want to change your opinion about that." I sighed in resignation as I walked to the full length mirror. I had to push my way through the crowds of girls who were finishing their preparation.

I finally made my way to the full length mirror. I stood directly in front of it and inhaled sharply. I was breathtaking.

The strawberry blonde had done my hair to perfection. I looked like a princess. My makeup was subtle, and it emphasized my eyes making them look larger than they were. The glass slippers were as comfortable as being barefoot. The strange dress that glittered silver worked perfectly with my skin tone. All in all, I don't think that I had ever looked prettier.

I was still having problems with my reflection. I still did not recognize myself. The girl staring back at me was a princess. I was Hermione, and I had not seen her in the mirror in a long time.

"Are you ready to go?" The strawberry blonde asked me.

"Yes," I replied. "Thank you so much for everything that you did for me. I really appreciate it." The girl just waved it off with a smile. We both walked out with a group of other girls. I lost the strawberry blonde girl in the masses, but we all made our way to the main dining room.

There was a large stage at the front of the room. The roving chandeliers were gathered together in the middle of the room to be one massive chandelier. A large pier came out from the center of the stage. I had the sinking feeling that it was for a catwalk.

I took an empty seat that was off to the right of the stage. I waited a few moments as the other students filed in. Everyone was dressed in their finest clothes as they all found seats in the main dining room.

Soon, the lights dimmed and popular Wizard rock music began to play. I thought I recognized the song as a Weird Wizards hit, but I could not be sure. The loud rumble of voices hushed slowly as a man took the stage.

"Welcome, students, to this year's Halloween pageant and ball," the man announcing the event boomed. The room broke out in thunderous applause and cheers.

"The pageant will be separated into three categories: talent, formal wear, and swimwear," the announcer said loudly. The crowd clapped their hands. "But first, let's meet the contestants!"

Whistles, claps, and cheers filled the room as about twenty boys came onto the stage. I spotted Draco. He was pretty hard to miss with the light on his platinum blond hair. The boys all stood on the stage while the audience cheered wildly. Soon, they disappeared behind the stage curtain.

The swimwear portion of the event began. Instead of coming out one by one all the boys came out at the same time. They were all dressed as scuba divers. I laughed out loud as I saw Draco with an oxygen tank strapped to his back and goggles on his face. They were all dressed in one piece scuba suits that were a different color. I did not fail to notice that Draco's was the same green as the Slytherin House theme color. I rolled my eyes but cheered for him all the same.

The models all disappeared to back stage. The talent portion of the show began. I watched a number of boys sing a song or play an instrument. A few did a potion on stage or a complicated spell. When Draco came out, he was wearing his old Quidditch uniform from Hogwarts.

"Mr. Draco Malfoy will be demonstrating his talent for us this evening in Quidditch style. His talent is snitch-catching. He's going to catch a golden snitch that will be released in this room in under sixty seconds," the announcer declared. I had my doubts about Draco talents, but I clapped encouragingly for him.

"Ready?" The announcer asked. Draco mounted his broom and nodded. The announcer held up a golden snitch in his hands. "Go!" He shouted as he released the snitch. The snitch flew away as Draco chased after it.

The snitch hovered underneath the ceiling as it launched out over the audience. We all craned our necks to watch as Draco zoomed after it on his broom. I watched a little worried as he flipped upside down on his broom on his mad chase after the tiny gold ball. He retained his hold on the broom shaft, and twirled back up to the correct side.

He dove wildly around the chandelier and dropped almost to floor level. He raced past the people that were sitting on the rows and ended up back on the stage. The clock had three seconds left when he reached his hand out. He reached farther and farther until his hand grasped the snitch. The alarm sounded, and Draco dropped off of his broom and onto the stage victoriously.

I jumped to my feet as I cheered for Draco. I shouted loudly as the rest of the room applauded for him. I realized that I was the only one standing and sat down embarrassed.

I watched the rest of the talents, and it eventually it was time for the fashion part of the show. I watched several of the boys dressed in fancy robes walk down the catwalk. They made a lot of ostentatious poses and smiled flirtatiously at the crowd. Finally, it was Draco's turn.

The first thing that struck me was that he was not wearing Wizarding robes. All of the boys up to this point had been wearing Wizarding robes. He was wearing formal Muggle attire. That was certainly new. Draco walked confidentially down the catwalk and struck a pose. He did not smile to the crowd, but the girls did not seem to care. Everyone cheered loudly for him. I recognized the smug smirk that was on his face. I rolled my eyes, but I could not help the smile that crossed my lips. I clapped politely for Draco.

As soon as the last model made his walk, the announcer retook the stage. "The judges have a winner. May I have all of the participants back to the stage, please?" All of the boys returned to the stage. Draco stared out blankly to the crowd in front of him. He waited patiently for the announcer to proclaim the winner.

"The second runner up of the Halloween Pageant is Jean Luc D'Allegro," A boy with voluminous curls accepted the medal over his head as the crowd cheered excitedly for him.

"The first runner up of the Halloween Pageant is Draco Malfoy." Draco's stoic face remained perfectly the same as he accepted the silver medal that the announcer slipped over his head. I clapped in sympathy as he was awarded the second place. I did not catch the name of the winner, but the applause was deafening as the announcer handed him a trophy.

As soon as the clamor settled downed Madam Maxime made her way onto the stage.

"Congratulations to our winner, and thank you to all of other participants," Madam Maxime said cheerfully. Everyone clapped, but she waved for them to stop.

"If you would all please rise to your feet, then we can begin the dance," Madam Maxime directed. Everyone stood to his or her feet. The Headmistress raised her wand and all of the chairs and the catwalk disappeared. The models exited the stage as a band came out to set up their instruments.

"The ball has begun," she announced. With another wave of her wand the main lights dimmed and the chandeliers glowed with a soft light from above. Music began to play as people started to couple off together.

I made a straight line for the door. I had to brush past quite a few students as I tried to escape the room. I had gotten through the thick of it, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"Are you going somewhere, Granger?" a cold voice drawled behind me. I turned around to see the beautiful grey eyes of Draco Malfoy staring down at me.

"I was just headed back to my room," I explained to him loudly over the music.

"You aren't staying for the dance?" Draco asked me, as his eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

"No one asked me," I confessed. "I did not want to stand around by myself." Draco rolled his eyes.

"We were going to go to the Hogwarts ball together, why not this one instead?" Draco asked me. I stared blankly at him.

"You told me that you didn't want to dance," I accused him. Draco sighed.

"Well, now I'm telling you that I do," Draco said stiffly.

"Are you asking me to dance?" I teased him. Draco's face was wooden, but his eyes looked amused.

"Yes, Granger, will you dance with me?" He offered me his hand. I gave him a pained face.

"I don't know, Malfoy," I told him with fake worry in my voice. "How would it look to be seen dancing with the second best looking guy at school?" Draco looked at me with burning eyes.

"I was cheated out of winning," Draco complained. "There's no way that the other guy is better looking than me."

"Maybe you're just not as handsome as you thought," I told him, trying to keep my face blank. Draco scowled at me.

"The pageant was bought out," Draco glowered. "Do you want to dance or not?" I could not help the smile that crossed my face.

"I would love to," I said as I took Draco's hand. He pulled me out to the dance floor, and we began to sway back and forth with the music. Draco twirled me gently and brought me back closer to him. We were talking about little things and complaining about Beauxbatons when Draco spun me out again. I was grinning like an idiot when I caught a glimpse of red. The smile immediately melted off of my face.

"Ron's here," I whispered covertly to Draco. Draco frowned down at me.

"Weasley is here?" He repeated disbelievingly. I nodded my head.

"Are we still fake dating?" I asked Draco. Draco gave me a smirk.

"Still want to make Weasel jealous, Granger?" Draco asked snidely. I nodded my head emphatically and pulled Draco over to the side of the dance floor where Ron would be sure to see us. My heart was heavy with guilt as I thought about what I was doing. This was not right. I should not be playing with Ron's emotions like this, but I was already in too deep.

Draco and I were dancing by the stone pillar on the side of the room. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ron approaching us.

"This is it, Malfoy," I whispered. "We have to get rid of Ron."

"Kiss me," Malfoy commanded. I felt my jaw drop open. Draco's grey eyes burned into mine. He looked like he was completely serious.

"Excuse me?" I asked. I must have heard wrong.

"You want to get rid of Weasel forever? Let him know that you are not available. Kiss me," Draco reasoned.

"I don't know, Malfoy. Kissing you would be friendship suicide to the Gryffindors," I stammered. Draco looked at me with his intense stare.

"Do you want to get rid of Weasel or not? You have to decide now," Draco said stiffly. I fought to take a deep breath. This was not supposed to be happening. Draco Malfoy was telling me to kiss him. Ron was coming to win me back. I took one moment too long to decide.

Draco grabbed the back of my neck just as Ron found us. He pressed his lips against mine, and my eyes fluttered closed. I involuntarily wrapped my arms around Draco's neck as one of his arms encircled my waist.. I was so completely caught up in kissing Draco that I barely registered Ron's shouted spell.

My eyes flew open as Draco fell back and hit his head against the stone pillar. I watched in horror as he fell to the floor unconscious. There was blood seeping from his head.


	18. Chapter 18

**A/N: So, I've noticed a collective hate of cliff hangers...I thrive off of them in my writing. :) Sorry about that. Thank you so much for reading! And to the Guest reviewer who said that they were now a Dramione Shipper, might I just say "VICTORY!" Thanks, again.**

Love is Blind

The rush to the Beauxbatons infirmary was a mad one. When Draco refused to wake up at my screams, I had cast a _Levius Corpus_ and lifted him gently off of the ground. I held up my long grey skirts in one hand and used the other to pull Draco along with my wand.

I tore down the bright, marble corridors. My glass slippers had been enchanted to be like bare feet, otherwise I would have kicked them off long ago. I heard someone else running after me. I did not look back, but I was fairly certain that it was Ron.

I ran to the infirmary and hazardously pushed the door open. The nurse jumped to her feet as she saw me dragging Malfoy through the air behind me.

"What happened?" The witch asked.

"He was hit by a spell. When he was knocked back, he hit his head on the stone pillar of the building," I explained shakily. The nurse nodded as she pointed to a bed for me to place Malfoy on.

"What spell was he hit with?" The nurse asked as she began to perform preliminary spells on Draco's unresponsive body. I turned to look at Ron.

"Well?" I asked him. Ron stared vacantly at Draco. "Ron! What spell did you hit him with?" Ron's deep, blue eyes connected with mine.

"A _stupefy_," Ron said uncertainly.

"He hit him with a _stupefy_," I related to the nurse. She nodded her head. She worked busily around Draco while I stood awkwardly in the middle of the room.

"I need to work, children," she said gently. "Go wait somewhere else. I'll send for you when I find out more about your friend." I nodded my head in misery. With one final glance at Draco's pale face, I slipped out of the room followed closely by Ron.

"How did the two of you understand each other?" Ron asked. "You were speaking English, and she was speaking French." I stood with my back up against the wall in corridor outside of the infirmary.

"It's a spell," I said quietly. I slid down the wall to sit on the floor. My grey dress pooled around me as I brought my knees up. I folded my arms across my knees and placed my head on top of them.

"Are you all right, Hermione?" Ron asked gently. He reached out a hand to place on my shoulder. I turned to give him a withering look. Ron instantly retracted his hand.

"No, I'm not all right, Ron," I told him bitterly. "You stunned Draco, and now he's unconscious in the infirmary." Ron looked at me with a grievous expression on his face.

"I know," he replied softly. "I am so sorry, Hermione. I never meant to hurt him that badly. I just, I mean, he was kissing you."

"What do you care if he was kissing me, Ron?" My anger snapped as we sat alone in the corridor. "You barely talk to me anymore."

"I know," Ron admitted. "I don't know what happened to us. I'm still glad that we're friends, Hermione. I love our friendship, and I don't want to lose you." I looked at the redheaded boy in front of me.

"Ron, you will always be special to me," I promised him. "We have been through everything together. We have had to do things in our childhood that most people are able to avoid their whole lives. But I can't keep living like this. Our friendship is hot and cold. You're my friend one moment, but then you don't talk to me the next. If you don't want to be friends anymore, then that's all right. That means, though, that we are not friends. Quit pulling me back and forth."

"I know, Hermione," Ron said desperately. "I'm sorry for everything that I've put you through. I've just been dealing with a lot of stress and decisions. I don't want to let you slip through the cracks."

"You already did, Ron," I reminded him softly. Ron looked miserable as he stared at me. I took a deep breath. "I have a confession."

"All right," Ron said gently.

"I was jealous for the first part of the term," I admitted. Ron looked completely confused.

"What were you jealous of?" He asked, nonplussed.

"I was jealous of all the girls that you were talking to when you didn't seem to have enough time for me," I said. My voice was watery as I twisted a fold of my dress into my hands.

"I'm sorry, Hermione," Ron looked torn.

"That's not all, though," I confessed. Ron nodded his head for me to continue. "Draco and I made a deal to get back at you. He was only pretending to date me, so that you would get jealous. That's why he was kissing me at the dance." Ron sat back against the wall. A strange look crossed his face.

"You did all that to get me jealous?" The corners of Ron's lips tipped up in a smile. I stared blankly at him as the tears began to sting my eyes.

"Yes," I choked out. "But it didn't work." Ron tilted his head to the side, as a soft smile crossed his face.

"I think that it did, Hermione," Ron said with the beginnings of a blush. "I was plenty jealous." I nodded my head in agreement.

"I know that," I said tiredly. "The problem was that I wasn't jealous anymore." Ron looked at me confusedly.

"What do you mean that you aren't jealous anymore?" Ron asked. I looked at him for a few moments before speaking.

"I mean that I stopped needing you to like me. I ended up just having a good time with Draco, and I became all right with the fact that we weren't together anymore," I said truthfully. Ron stared at me.

"I never broke up with you, Hermione," Ron said seriously. "I still want to be together."

"I'm sorry, Ron," I whispered. "I can't." Ron broke eye contact and just stared straight ahead. We sat in silence as we both were lost in our own thoughts.

"Do you love him?" Ron asked me suddenly. I bit my lip.

"What?" I asked him, coming out of my reverie.

"Malfoy," Ron clarified. "Do you love him?"

"Maybe," I shrugged. "I like him." We both continued our silent thoughts. I stared at a few of the Wizard portraits that hung in front of me. It seemed like an eternity of awkward silence as I sat there in the corridor with Ron.

The door of the infirmary swung open. The nurse walked out into the corridor and stopped when she spotted Ron and me.

"Children," she began. "Are either of you the other exchange student from Hogwarts?" I raised my hand as I stood to my feet.

"I am," I said. She motioned with her hand for me to follow her. I did so silently, without a backwards glance at Ron.

"I need to talk to you about Mr. Malfoy's condition," the nurse said seriously.

"Is he all right?" I questioned nervously. The nurse gave me a pained look.

"He is alive," she assured me. I breathed a sigh of relief but waited for her to continue.

"What's wrong then?" I asked her. The nurse gave me a motherly look.

"You, of course, are aware that magic can't fix everything, right?" I nodded my head. Dumbledore had told Harry the same thing when his parents had died, but she had said that Draco was alive, hadn't she?

"Yes, ma'am," I affirmed. The nurse appraised me with tired eyes.

"Mr. Malfoy hit the back of his head when he was stunned by that spell," the nurse said slowly. "I'm afraid that he has some damage to the optic nerves." I tilted my head.

"What does that mean?" I asked her.

"Mr. Malfoy is blind," she said softly. I took an involuntary step back.

"You mean that he can't see anything?" I asked her shakily. I barely registered the tears that were seeping down my cheeks.

"He can recognize direct light when it's shined directly into his eyes, but other than that, no, he cannot see anything," the nurse informed me. A sob racked my body. This was my fault. It was my idea to make Ron jealous, and now Draco was blind.

"There's nothing that you can do?" I demanded. The nurse shook her head.

"There's nothing that I can do for him here," the nurse said tragically. "I am recommending that he see a specialized healer, but I feel that the chances are slim." I nodded my head as the tears continued to fall onto the floor.

"May I see him?" I asked her suddenly. The nurse looked like she was inwardly debating my request, but her resolve eventually caved.

"For a few moments," she allowed. "He needs his rest." I agreed to her condition and slipped into the infirmary doors. The nurse stayed out in the corridors to give Draco and me some privacy. I walked resolutely to his bedside.

"Malfoy?" I asked, hating the teary sound in my voice.

"Granger?" Draco turned his head to me. I could not help myself from staring directly at his empty, grey eyes. They still held that same intensity that they always did, but they were not directly focused on me.

"Yes," I announced. "The nurse told me what happened." I sat in the plastic chair by Draco's bed.

"Who knew kissing you would be so forceful?" Draco joked. I stared at him, but I did not laugh.

"How can you be so calm about this?" I asked him as the tears built up in my eyes once more.

"It could be the sedative that they gave me," Draco drawled slowly. "But I guess I stopped caring about things a while ago."

"You stopped caring?" I questioned. What was he talking about?

"Well, I had," Draco amended. "You sort of changed that." I tilted my head to the side.

"I don't understand, Malfoy," I said simply. Draco tried to find me with his blank eyes. He ended up staring directly above me. It was haunting to look at his eyes. His face was as empty as it always was, but now his eyes were too.

"I guess spending so much time with you just made me care about things that had stopped mattering to me," Draco admitted. There was something strange in his voice. How much painkiller had they given him? He was talking as if he was drunk.

"All right," I said quietly. Maybe I should just let him finish his ramble.

"I started to care about you, Granger," Draco said blankly. My head jerked up to look at him. The tears ran silently down the tip of my nose and dropped onto my grey dress.

"I care about you too, Malfoy," I said with the tears choking out my voice. A strange look crossed Draco's face.

"No, I mean like really care about you," Draco argued. A tear slipped out of my eye. "I didn't know if you would ever figure it out. The reason why I agreed to fake date you or why I wouldn't let that one git take you to the dance or my muffle clothes, that was all for you."

"I really care about you too, Malfoy," I whispered. Draco's face looked upset for one moment, before it melted back into his blank features.

"I guess that doesn't matter anymore," Draco shrugged. I felt my stomach drop. I could not take much more emotion this evening. I slipped my hand into his.

"It does matter, Malfoy," I affirmed. "You shouldn't be so quick to give up hope. They're going to send you to a specialist. Who knows? You could be just fine."

"Thanks for the optimism," Draco said emotionlessly. He sat back tiredly on his pillow. "But I would need a miracle." His words came flooding back to me. I remembered the day that he had eaten with my friends for the first time.

"_Hermione and I are dating because she is the most amazing person that I have ever met. The fact that she is dating me proves that miracles and God's grace are real."_

Had I really changed him that much? I bit my lip as we sank into silence together. Both of us were lost in our own thoughts, but we both were praying for the miracle that we needed. As I stared at Malfoy's hand that was still entwined with mine, I vaguely wondered if God had already given me my miracle.


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: THANK YOU FOR READING!**

Guilty

As soon as Draco was able, he was moved to a professional healer who specialized in the surgery that Draco would need. I promised to visit him. As for me, I had had enough of Beauxbatons Academy of Magic. I cleared everything with Madam Maxime and set out to leave for Hogwarts.

I stood in the Beauxbaton's Seventh Year girls' dormitory. It was fairly empty as I used my wand to pack up my things. I was glad that I was going back to Hogwarts, but I could not keep my mind off of Draco.

"Are you leaving?" I looked up from my packing to see Strawberry Blonde standing behind me.

"Yes," I said as shoved all of my school supplies into my book bag.

"I thought you were staying until Christmas," the girl questioned sadly as she handed me a few of my things from the wooden box at the end of my bed.

"You heard about Draco, right?" I asked, looking up at her. She nodded her head. "Well, I guess I would just rather be at the place that feels like home with everything that has happened."

"How is Draco handling it?" The girl with strawberry blonde hair asked. I whisked the rest of my belongings into my trunk.

"He's actually better than I am," I said seriously. "I want him to get better, but the doctors say that the chances are not very good."

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely. "I'll pray for him."

"And what good will that do?" I exploded. I did not mean to be so mean, but, honestly, what good was magic if it could not fix Malfoy? What good was praying, if the doctors said that Draco was doomed to darkness? It was all my fault. No one could see that, but if they could then they would let me carry on with my self-pity and stop with their empty words of sympathy.

The French girl smiled politely at me, even though I had just yelled at her.

"It does help," she assured me quietly. "God might not fix your friend, but he could help you." I swallowed as I looked at here. This girl was not making any sense.

"Draco Malfoy is blind. Why would I need help?" I wondered. The girl looked at me as we both sat on my neatly, overly-ruffled bed.

"Do you believe in God?" She asked me candidly. I nodded my head. That was the truth, I supposed. Everybody believes in something. I guessed that I believed God was out there.

"Yes," I said uncertainly.

"Well, maybe this is just God performing a miracle. Maybe he will bring you to know him better this way," the strawberry blonde girl shrugged.

"How can you be so sure about something like that?" I asked her.

"I guess I was just saved by grace," the girl said as she twirled a piece of hair around her finger.

"Well, thank you," I said as I stood up. I grabbed my trunk to pull through the palace with me. Strawberry Blonde picked up the other end, and together we walked through the pretty corridors. I was on my way to Madam Maxime's office. I was going to Floo to Hogwarts using her fireplace. Soon, we reached the portrait of the majestic white stallion grazing calmly in a field.

"Goodbye, Hermione," the girl hugged me after we arrived. I returned her embrace.

"Thank you for everything you did for me. I'm sorry about the tear stains on your dress," I smiled to her. She waved her hand dismissively.

"Nothing a little cleaning spell won't get right out," she said. I nodded my head.

"I've been here for two weeks, and I don't even know your name," I admitted with embarrassment. The girl's face broke into a big smile.

"I'm Grace Cazes," she extended her hand to mine. I shook it firmly.

"Well, it was good to meet you, Grace," I said as she started to walk away down the corridor.

"You too, Hermione," she said sincerely. "I wasn't kidding, though. You and Draco would be perfect together." With a wink and a smile she disappeared around a corner. I sighed to myself as I whispered the password to the portrait. The door swung open, and I walked into the office of Madam Maxime.

"Are you ready to leave, Hermione?" The giantess asked me brightly. I nodded as I dragged my trunk over to her fireplace.

"Thank you for having me," I told her politely. The tall lady smiled.

"Of course," she grinned. "I am sorry that your time was cut short." I pulled my trunk into the fireplace with me. Madam Maxime offered me a bag of Floo powder.

"Goodbye, Hermione," the giantess said. I smiled sadly at her as I took a pinch of the magical powder.

"Goodbye," I whispered. I threw the powder down, shouted out the name of my school, and was engulfed in green flames.

The next thing I knew, I was standing in Professor McGonagall's office. I hacked up a wheezing cough as I stumbled out of her office.

"Ah, Miss Granger," Professor McGonagall greeted. I stood up to my full height.

"Hello, Professor," I said as I pulled my sooty trunk out of the fireplace.

"How was your trip to Beauxbatons?" The wizened professor asked me. I thought about that.

"I prefer Hogwarts," I said truthfully. Professor McGonagall gave me a smile.

"Glad to hear it," she said. "We would hate to lose you."

"No fear of that," I promised. "Have you heard anything about Draco?" The professor sat down at her desk.

"Nothing yet," Professor McGonagall said tiredly. "He has been admitted to St. Mungo's."

"Do you think that I could go visit him?" I asked her hopefully. McGonagall pushed her dark hat out of her eyes.

"I think that would be all right," she agreed. "Wait until tomorrow, though. You wouldn't want to overwhelm the Malfoys." I nodded my head.

"How did the ball go?" I asked her. She gave me a smile.

"You did a wonderful job planning, Miss Granger," the professor smiled at me. "Everyone had a wonderful time."

"That's good," I smiled. I prepared to leave the room, when McGonagall's voice stopped me.

"About the other inter-House events, Miss Granger," McGonagall called. I turned around to face her.

"Yes?" I asked her.

"Well, of course you will be able to keep your title as Head Girl, but I would understand if you would rather that I find a replacement to plan everything for you," McGonagall offered kindly. I considered that for a moment, but I shook my head vigorously.

"No, thank you," I said. "I would actually like to call a prefects' meeting for later today, if that's all right. I've got some new ideas for inter-House unity." The professor could not hide the surprised look that claimed her face.

"All right, then," she smiled as she allowed me to leave. I walked out of her office and into the musty corridors of my home, Hogwarts. I cast a spell onto my bag, and it floated close behind me as I made my way to Gryffindor Tower. I stood outside the portrait of the Fat Lady. I had no idea what the password was this week, so I was stuck sitting on my trunk waiting for someone to come.

I remembered that McGonagall was going to call a prefects' meeting for later today. I did not have much time to stand around waiting. Thinking quickly, I shrunk my trunk and placed it in the pocket of my robe.

I took off down the stairs to the library for the prefects' meeting. The meeting went well, but my heart was not in it. I told everyone about my new ideas; they all agreed to them, and we decided to implement them as soon as possible.

I left the meeting exhausted. I had not slept much the night before. I had ended up sitting up all night in the infirmary with Draco. It was the least that I could do, now that he was hurt.

I made my way back up to the Gryffindor Tower. I chatted nicely with the Fat Lady as I waited for someone to come along. I was dying to get into my bed and just sleep for days.

I heard someone approach the door. I recognized the laugh as Ginny's, and I assumed that since she was laughing, Harry was with her.

My two friends rounded the corner and spotted me.

"Hermione!" Ginny squealed as she pulled me into one of her bone-crushing hugs. As soon as she released me, Harry caught me up in a hug as well.

"What are you doing back?" Harry asked me happily as he released me.

"They told us that you wouldn't be back until Christmas," Ginny chimed. I nodded my head.

"The both of you heard about Malfoy?" I asked them. My friends nodded their heads.

"Nothing happens at this school without the entire student body knowing about it," Ginny said. I smiled at that.

"Well, I came back because I would rather be here than at Beauxbatons by myself," I explained. Ginny sent me a knowing smile which I avoided.

"So how was the French school?" Harry asked me after he gave the password to the fat lady.

"It was nowhere as good as Hogwarts," I told them. "Though, I did get some good ideas for the House Unity that McGonagall is working on." We all sat down on the snuggly, warm couches around the roaring fire of the common room. I sighed as I took in the familiar feeling.

"We're glad to have you back, Hermione," Harry said as he draped his arm around Ginny.

"What happened with Ron? He said he was going to visit you, and he hasn't spoken since he's come back," Ginny asked curiously. I bit my lip before telling them. How were they going to take the news? My guess was not well.

"Ron and I had a fight," I said as simply as possibly. Harry looked sad, but Ginny just looked relieved.

"I'm sorry, Hermione," Harry said sympathetically. I thanked him, but Ginny kept her mouth shut. This was new for her, so I guessed that she would want to talk about it later.

We chatted aimlessly for a while. I was reminded of how much I had missed my friends. This school year had not been at all what I had intended. I sat snuggled into the couch laughing with my friends as my eyelids began to droop.

"Hermione?" Ginny called. I could feel myself slipping into unconsciousness, but I forced myself awake.

"I guess I should head up to bed," I told my friends as I sat upright. Harry nodded his head.

"I'll go with you," Ginny offered. She and Harry stood to their feet as I clambered to mine. Harry kissed Ginny's cheek before shooting me a smile.

"Goodnight, Hermione," he said quietly.

"Goodnight, Harry," I hugged him. Ginny and I walked up the staircase to our room. As soon as we were there, she cornered me.

"Tell me about, Ron," she directed as she flopped onto my bed. I followed suit and flopped down next to her.

"What's to tell?" I asked her evasively. "Ron and I were close friends and now we are not." Ginny raised an eyebrow.

"Yes, but you seemed willing to wait for him earlier," Ginny observed. "Did a better offer come along?" I smacked her with my pillow before burying my face into it.

"That's not a kind way to talk about your brother," I admonished her. Ginny shrugged her shoulder.

"You didn't answer my question," Ginny pointed out. I sighed to myself.

"I guess I'm happy dating Draco," I told her tiredly.

"Oh," Ginny said happily. "You and Draco are perfect together, don't you think so?

"No," I said remorsefully, "and we are never going to be. Gin, it's my fault that he's blind." Ginny tilted her head at me.

"How on earth is it your fault?" she asked. I told her everything. I told her about the fake dating, the kiss, and Ron's spell. It felt so good to tell someone. I had been harboring all this guilt, and there was the relief of someone else knowing was tangible.

"And now you know everything," I said as I sat back on my pillow.

"Well, that doesn't sound like your fault," Ginny summarized. "If it's anyone's fault, it's Ron's." I deflated just a little, but I decided not to argue with her.

"I'm tired, Gin," I said truthfully. Ginny obligingly got off of my bed.

"So when are you going to visit Malfoy next?" Ginny asked as she walked over to her own bed.

"Tomorrow," I told her.

"Well, then," I could hear the mischief in Ginny's voice. "I won't keep you up. I know you'll want to leave early tomorrow."

"Thanks," I said earnestly as I sunk deeper into my pillow. I was excited about visiting Draco tomorrow, but there was the haunting fear in the back of my mind that he would blame me for what happened.

And he would be right.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: You will either love orhate this chapter depending on if you love or hate fluffiness. I don't know anyone who is apathetic towards fluffiness. Anyway, I really liked this chapter and I hope that you do too! Thank you for reading.**

Saturday

The next morning was a beautiful Saturday. The beginnings of my House unity plans were already in motion. The four giant tables of the Great Hall had been removed. There were now circle shaped tables dotting the room. At each table there were an equal number of red, yellow, blue, and green chairs. Students were told at the door to sit in the chair that matched the House that they were in.

The students complained and stood around in little groups at the side of room. Eventually, their hunger would win out, and they would sit in their respective seat. I observed happily as a Slytherin and Hufflepuff were talking civilly to each other.

I finished my breakfast at record speed. As soon as I could, I stood up from the table and marched purposefully to McGonagall's office.

I whispered the password under my breath, and the door creaked open. McGonagall was not inside. I was only there to use the Floo, so I decided to go in anyway. I closed the door firmly.

I grabbed a pinch of the Floo powder and clambered into the old fireplace.

"St. Mungo's," I shouted as I threw down the powder. I popped out into the waiting room of a Wizarding hospital. I dusted myself off with my embarrassment, but no one had noticed me. Maybe girls fell out of the fireplace all the time at St. Mungo's. I spotted the reception desk and walked to it resolutely.

"Hello," the lady behind the desk chirped.

"I'm here to see Draco Malfoy," I told her clearly.

"Draco Malfoy," she repeated to herself as she thumbed expertly through her files. "Ah, here it is. It says here that Draco Malfoy is not taking visitors." The lady looked up at me apologetically.

"No," I denied. "I have to see him. Please, there must be something that you can do." I was not above begging. If it was my fault that Draco was in this mess, then, by Merlin, I was going to keep my promise to come visit him.

"What is your name?" The lady asked kindly.

"Hermione Granger," I stated, but I was confused. Why would my name be important?

"Oh, it says here that you are the exception," she beamed at me.

"I'm the what?" I questioned, nonplussed. The lady re-read the note that was attached to Draco's files.

"Mr. Malfoy isn't allowing visitors, except for you," the lady read off the note to me.

"Oh," I replied intelligently. He had made an exception for me?

"He's in room 3A," the woman directed. "But you'll need to hurry. He's going into surgery this afternoon." He was going into surgery today? This was happening suddenly.

I thanked the lady at the desk and made my way to room 3A. I could not seem to get over the fact that Malfoy had made an exception for me. It was almost as if he had wanted me to visit him. I reminded myself not to get too excited. I had promised him that I would come. Still, an unwanted blush was gracing my cheeks as I continued walking.

"You're the Granger girl," a deep voice said icily. I spun around and looked up into the eyes of Lucius Malfoy.

"Yes," I admitted carefully.

"Draco's told me all about you," Lucius said blankly. I did not know how to respond to that. It was uncomfortable to think about Draco and his father having conversations about me. What on earth would they say? I decided that it would be better to change the subject.

"How are you, Mr. Malfoy?" Lucius sneered down at me as he rested regally against his walking stick.

"I'd be better if my only son weren't in the hospital," he hissed silkily. I bent my head forward in shame.

"I know," I admitted softly. "Maybe his surgery will be a success." Lucius stared at me condescendingly.

"That no longer matters," Lucius said dismissively. I bit my lip in thought.

"Of course it does," I said defiantly. Why would it not matter to Mr. Malfoy if Draco was blind forever?

"Draco has already shamed the family. I only came to give him a chance to rethink his decision," Lucius looked at me judgmentally.

"But he's your only son," I said bewildered. I knew how much Draco meant to his parents. What could he have done that would receive this sort of treatment?

"Not since I've disowned him," Lucius shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly. I was taken aback.

"You disowned Draco?" I asked disbelievingly. Lucius nodded his head.

"I hope you realize that you may expect no help from Draco's mother or me," Lucius drawled coldly. I raised an eyebrow.

"What does that mean?" I questioned. Lucius did not answer my question.

"Until later, Miss Granger," Lucius's silky voice bid me farewell as he disappeared down the corridor. That was uncomfortable. I tried to shake the conversation from my mind as I continued to Draco's room. Mr. Malfoy's words haunted me. What had he meant? What could Draco have done that would have incensed his father so much as to disown him? Why would Draco not change his mind?

I stood uncertainly outside of the door for room 3A. I debated hesitantly if I should knock. Deciding that it would be best, I rapped carefully on the door.

"Come in," Draco's cold voice drawled from inside. I cautiously cracked the door open before swinging it all the way out.

"Hey, Malfoy," I greeted warmly. "It's me."

"It's me?" Draco repeated sarcastically. "That's not very informative, Granger." I rolled my eyes as I took a seat next to his bed.

"So how are you doing?" I asked him stupidly. He was in a hospital, for Merlin's sake. How did I expect him to be doing? Draco was obviously thinking along the same lines as me. He turned his empty eyes towards the direction of my voice before he answered.

"As well as can be expected," he shrugged. I was mentally slapping myself for my failed attempts at small talk.

"Your father talked to me outside in the corridor," I informed Draco. He stared unseeingly at me with his blank eyes.

"That must have been unpleasant," Draco said slowly. I could have laughed. Unpleasant was an understatement.

"Yes," I agreed with him. I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. "He told me that he disowned you, Malfoy." I waited for Draco to confirm or deny it.

"He did," Draco said simply. I stared at Draco. How could he be taking this so well?

"What did you do?" I asked flatly.

"I'd rather not talk about it right now, Granger," Draco said tiredly. Oh. I sat back a little disappointed in my chair. "Tell me about school." That brought the smile back to my lips.

"Professor McGonagall said that everyone loved the Halloween Ball," I informed Draco. His lips twisted into a smirk as he sat back onto his pillow.

"I told you that you worried too much," Draco said snidely. I just laughed softly.

"I guess you were right," I conceded.

"Something that you should remember, Granger," Draco said smugly. "I always am."

"I set up the tables differently in the Great Hall. You'll have to see it when you come back. It's for House unity, and it's pretty brilliant if I do say so myself," I tried not to boast.

"I'm sure that the Slytherins will love the idea," Draco said sarcastically. I thought about coming up with a snide remark, but I decided to get to the point of conversation.

"So I talked to Ron," I tried to say casually. It ended up coming out as shaky as I felt. Draco's face instantly contorted. He tried to look at me with his haunting eyes.

"How did that go?" Draco asked emotionlessly. I twisted my fingers into the black fabric of my Hogwarts robe.

"As well as can be expected," I said as I echoed his previous words. "We broke up. I mean, we broke up officially. We've been broken up for quite some time, I suppose."

"My condolences," Draco said stiffly, but his face almost looked relieved as he stared at the ceiling above him.

"Draco," he looked towards me when I used his first name. "I'm sorry that this happened to you. It was my fault." Draco's grey eyes stared blankly into mine. I shivered involuntarily under their gaze.

"This isn't your fault, Granger," Draco assured me condescendingly. "If I recall, it was your idiot friend, Weasel who attacked me."

"Yes," I agreed. "But it was my idea to make Ron jealous. It's my fault that he attacked you."

"You can't blame yourself for this," Draco argued. "If you want to talk about making Weasel jealous, then it was my fault because I kissed you." I blushed at the mention of our kiss.

"Yes, but you wouldn't have been kissing me if I hadn't wanted to make Ron jealous," I countered. Draco's lips bent up into their trademark smirk.

"I wouldn't be so sure about that, Granger," Draco said leadingly. I tilted my head to the side. Had I missed something?

"What?" I asked him for clarification. Draco sighed as he tried to find me again with his eyes.

"I didn't kiss you just to make the Weasel jealous," Draco confessed.

"Then why did you kiss me?" I wondered out loud. Draco looked exceedingly uncomfortable as I waited for his answer. He took a deep breath.

"I kissed you because I wanted to," Draco said flatly. I sat back in my chair.

"Oh," I whispered. My blush from before was now raging across my face as I thought about his words.

"Yeah," Draco agreed. I twisted piece of hair into my fingers as I stared at the boy in front of me. He was lanky and unbearably tall. His features were pointed, and his skin was pale as snow. But he had the most intoxicating eyes. They burned with something that was entirely his own. He was surprisingly chivalrous and intelligent and almost nice at times.

"So," Draco interrupted my appraisal of him. "You heard about the surgery?" I nodded my head before remembering that it was futile.

"Yes," I affirmed. "The receptionist told me that I could not stay long, but I hope that everything goes well, Malfoy. I hope that you can see again." Draco nodded his platinum blond head.

"I do too, but if it doesn't, then I think that I am all right with my last sight," Draco said easily. I sat forward in my chair.

"What was the last thing you saw, Malfoy?" I questioned him intently. Draco's lips bent up into a smile. It was the first time that I had seen him really smile all year. He was quite handsome when he smiled, really. He should have done it more often.

"You," Draco replied simply.

"Me?" I echoed. My voice came out in a most annoying, breathless tone. I guessed it made since that the last thing he saw was me. He was knocked unconscious after the dance. Still, the way he said it made me feel special.

"Yes," Draco said wistfully. "You in your sparkling dress and you were kissing me. That's the last thing I saw." A warm feeling pricked my stomach as I sat in my chair. How was I supposed to respond to that? Did I thank him? No, that seemed silly after everything. I was just about to reply when a nurse popped her head in through the door.

"Mr. Malfoy," she interrupted my thoughts. "The doctor will see you soon." She turned to look at me. "I'm afraid that you will have to leave now, miss." I nodded my head to show that I understood.

"All right," I said as I stood to my feet. The nurse disappeared back out of the door, and I turned around to face Draco.

"I guess I'll be going then, Malfoy," I said lightly. Draco stared at the space to my left.

"Kiss me for good luck, Granger," Draco commanded. I rolled my eyes, but I sat by him on the edge of his bed.

The ends of his blond bangs were falling into his eyes. Normally, he would have swept them out of the way so that he could see better. A wave of sadness flooded through me as I brushed Draco's bangs gently out of his eyes. Draco's face relaxed at my gesture, and he waited patiently.

"You're beautiful, Granger," Draco said softly. "You know that, don't you?" I stared at Draco incredulously.

"That's a bit difficult to believe, Malfoy," I replied gently. "Considering that you can't see me right now." I did not know if Draco would get mad at my words. My fears were quickly whisked away as his breathtaking smile slowly crossed his face.

"Then you should know that the 'beautiful' that I am talking about is more than just your pretty face," Draco reasoned. "Though, if I remember correctly, your face is nice too." I flushed at Draco's words, and I could not fight the idiotic smile that refused to come off of my face.

"You're not so bad yourself, Malfoy," I said truthfully. "You should smile more often. You look nice when you do." Draco graced me with another smile as he took in my words.

"I wish that you could stay to keep me company, but the head Healer is not to be trifled with," Draco warned. "Nasty, that one." I laughed merrily at him.

"Well, then good luck with your surgery, Malfoy," I told him earnestly.

"Don't forget about my kiss," Draco admonished. I smiled brightly at him. I leaned down and quickly pecked him on the lips. Draco looked surprised.

"I thought you wanted me to kiss you," I said, suddenly embarrassed. Draco shook his head, but his face was amused.

"I was talking about a kiss on the check, but the error was in my favor," Draco smirked. I clapped a hand over my mouth.

"I'm sorry, Malfoy," I apologized quickly.

"I'm not," Draco stated. "Feel free to misunderstand me again." I slapped him lightly on the arm, but I placed a chaste kiss on his lips again before I stood up.

"I hope that you will get well, Malfoy," I said sincerely. The words of Grace, the French girl with strawberry blonde hair came flooding back to me. "I'll pray for you." I expected Draco to get as upset as I did at the words, but he actually seemed please when I said it. Did everyone get this God thing except for me?

"Thank you, Granger," Draco said sincerely. I turned and headed for the door. As I reached for the handle, I looked back one more time at the boy lying on the hospital bed.

"Goodbye, Malfoy," I said meaningfully.

"See you later, Granger."


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: Thank you all for the sweet review last chapter. I'm glad that you enjoyed it. The fluffy-potential of Dramione is just overwhelming. Thank you for reading.**

Results

I stayed in the waiting room of St. Mungo's for four terrible, long hours. I prayed; I cried. I read; I cried. I paced; I threatened; I pleaded; I cried. My mind alternated between Draco and his beautiful smile, and Grace with her haunting words.

The waiting was the worst part. I knew that somewhere in the other part of the hospital, a Healer was working on Draco right now. This would change his life. This would change everything. He had taken it so calmly. If it had been me, I would have been agonizing over a Healer finding a possible cure. But Draco didn't agonize. He was calm, just like Grace was.

I had tried to pray, but it just did not work. I tried to think back to what Draco had called me in front of my friends. God's grace. A miracle. I needed both of those things. I paced restlessly through the corridors at the front of the hospital. People avoided crashing in to me, but I was too preoccupied to even notice them.

I sat down exhaustedly in a plastic chair in the waiting room. I sighed heavily as I began to fold my hands together. I thought back to my Muggle life before Hogwarts. I thought of how to pray.

"God," I began shakily. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I have a favor to ask. God, I need a miracle. It's my fault that Malfoy is here, even if no one else sees that. Please let him see again. In Jesus' name, amen."

I finished my prayer and then walked aimlessly around the building. What if Malfoy could never see again? That would change his life forever. Would it change mine?

I like Malfoy well enough, but would I stay with him forever? Would he want me to stay? Who else would take care of him, if he was doomed to darkness for the rest of his life? I let the tears drip down onto the floor as I continued walking. I had made full circle of the building. I was standing in the middle of the waiting room, when I heard someone calling.

"Miss, miss," the receptionist called. I turned around at her calls. "Miss," she indicated me. "Mr. Malfoy is out of surgery now, and he has requested to see you." I nodded my head bravely and wiped the remnants of tears off of my face.

"Do you know how the surgery went? Is he better? Did it work?" I pelted her with questions, but she held up her hand for me to stop.

"I have not heard any news on Mr. Malfoy's surgery, but I am not allowed to disclose patient information, anyway," the nurse explained. I bit my lip as I walked away from her. I had to keep myself from running to room 3A.

As soon as I got there, I rapped on the door anxiously. There was no answer. I opened the door cautiously as I entered the room.

"Malfoy?" I called as I walked into the room. I found Draco sitting up on his bed. There was a piece of white, sterile cloth wrapped around his eyes.

"How do I look, Granger?" Draco asked candidly as I took my place right next to him on his hospital bed.

"Like a mummy," I declared without missing a beat.

"That's nice," Draco said sarcastically. "Go ahead and mock the boy who just got out of surgery."

"I'm sorry, Malfoy," I apologized quickly. Draco shrugged his shoulder.

"I probably deserved it," Draco decided.

"So did the surgery work?" I asked anxiously. I leaned over to gently trace the line of Draco's bandage.

"They won't know for a while. They said they can take off the bandage in a few hours. That's when we will know," Draco said seriously. I sighed heavily.

"Is everything all right, Granger?" Draco asked as he turned his head toward me.

"I'm just tired," I sniffled as I slumped in my place on the side of Draco's hospital bed. Draco slid over on his bed so that I could sit next to him. He gestured toward the empty place, and I moved over to sit by him. I missed his grey eyes and the way that they burned their intense stare into my eyes.

"It's more than that," Draco insisted. I sighed as I raised the sleeve of my robe to my eyes. I wiped the black cloth across them. I really did not want Draco Malfoy to hear me cry.

"Do you ever wish things were the way that they used to be, Malfoy?" I asked in a watery voice. Draco's blond hair fell over the bandage on his eyes, all the while keeping his face turned towards mine.

"The way that they used to be?" Draco repeated. I nodded my head vigorously.

"Yes, the way that they used to be before the war," I sighed. Draco's brow furrowed in bewilderment.

"I'm not quite sure what you mean, Granger," Draco said. I let out a sound of frustration. I quickly stood to my feet and began pacing the ground in front of where Draco remained seated.

"I mean how things were before the war. I mean when Harry and Ron were my friends, and Ron liked me, and you had emotions. I mean when things were normal, and we were just all just children. I'm tired, Malfoy," I ranted. The tears slipped down my cheeks as the emotion raged within me.

"Granger," Draco said tiredly. He raked his hands over his face and gently touched the white bandage that was around his eyes. I wiped my sleeve of my robe over my face again. "Come sit back down so that I can talk to you." Draco patted the section of the mattress to his right. I sat down gently on the half of the bed that Draco was not occupying.

"I just want to be myself again, Malfoy," I pleaded quietly. The sobs began to rack my body. I felt Draco gather me into his arms, and I cried into his shoulder. Draco's strong arms held me against him as I cried out all my pent up frustration. As my crying abated, Draco began to talk to me.

"It's all right, Granger," Draco whispered soothingly.

"Don't you wish that things were back to the way they were, Malfoy?" I asked him. Draco shook his head firmly.

"No, I don't," Draco said quietly but sincerely. I looked up at him from my place in his arms. The tears were still streaming down my face as I stared at him.

"How can you not?" My voice cracked. "Surely, you wish for the way that things were before the Dark Lord came back, Malfoy."

"No, Granger," Draco whispered. He gently wiped the tears off of my face with his sleeve. The motion was awkward and clumsy because he could not see what he was doing, but it was the single sweetest thing that anyone had ever done for me. "Things might have been easier for me before the war, but I would not trade my life now for my life then."

"Why not?" I asked Draco sincerely. He looked at me with the covering over his eyes. It was unnerving to look at him, and I wanted to slide away from his bandaged face, but I did not want Draco to stop holding me. Something sounded wrong with that, but I did not want to think about it.

"I didn't like who I was before. I didn't like my life. It wasn't as good. I was never happy," Draco told me. I looked up at Draco's even, pointed features.

"Are you happy now, Draco?" I wondered as I placed my hands flat on the hospital mattress underneath me. I rested my head on Draco's shoulder.

"Right now I am," Draco said softly. A blush crossed my face as I sat in Draco's arms.

"This has been the single most frustrating year at Hogwarts for us, and you can't even see right now," I reminded him. "How can you be so happy?" Draco shrugged his shoulder, causing my head to move up and down.

"I guess that you just make me happy, Hermione," Draco replied. I jerked my head back to look at his bandaged face. For the first time since the school year started, Draco looked serene. There was no more fake mask covering his emotions. He looked like he was at peace. I reached up to gently brush the bangs off of his bandage. Draco accepted the act quietly. As soon as I was done, he opened his mouth.

"I'm going to kiss you, Granger," Draco announced. I was startled at his blunt statement, but I did not object. "I've never tried to kiss someone blind. So, if you could just point me in the right direction, I will take it from there." I laughed at him but gently cupped his chin in my hand. I guided it slowly to my face. With a deep breath, I placed my lips on Draco's and let him 'take it from there'.

As he kissed me, I wrapped my arms around his neck, and he pulled me to sit closer to him. After a few moments, we broke apart.

"You want to know something, Granger?" Draco asked as we sat back against the pillows of his hospital bed. He had wrapped one of his arms around me, and I placed my head back on his shoulder. He smelled like surgery.

"What?" I asked him. I straightened out my Gryffindor robe around me.

"I'm glad that everything awful that happened this year happened to us," Draco stated calmly. I thought about that.

"You are?" I asked him curiously. Draco nodded adamantly.

"Getting stuck together, being Heads, Beauxbatons, and even being blind, if all that had not happened, then we might be together right now," Draco said. I looked down at my black shoes that I wore for school.

"So you're glad that all this happened, because we're together right now?" I clarified. Draco smiled a little.

"The blind kisses aren't my first choice, but if it means that I get to kiss you, then I will accept it," Draco declared. I smiled happily as I snuggled deeper into his shoulder.

"Why did your father disown you?" I asked him again. Draco sighed deeply as he readjusted his arm around me.

"Astoria Greengrass and I have been engaged for almost two years. We were set up by our parents. We're engaged because they told us to be. It was a business deal, of sorts," Draco explained. I nodded my head to show that I understood. I did not like the fact that Draco was an arranged marriage.

"Astoria kept her threat and told both her parents and mine that you and I were dating. I received four separate howlers telling me to break up with you," Draco told me. Oh. I sat quietly as I waited for Draco to continue. "Well, when her parents heard that I was blind, they wanted to pull out of the deal," Draco said flatly. I placed my hand in his.

"I'm sorry, Draco," I said quietly.

"No," Draco shook his head. "It's all right. I told my parents that even if the surgery was somehow successful that I was not going to marry Astoria."

"That's why your father disowned you?" I asked him. "Because you refused to be part of an arranged marriage? That's a little harsh." Draco stammered uncomfortably.

"I think that my father might have handled my refusal to get married, if I hadn't told him that I was not going to stop dating you," Draco drawled slowly. I bolted upright.

"You were disowned because of me?" I asked him as calmly as I could.

"It appears so," Draco said plainly. I bit my lip, but I could not restrain myself from my outburst.

"Draco, I feel really bad. I never meant for your father to disown you. Is there anything that I can do?" I rambled as the guilty feeling started to overtake me. Draco silenced me with a poorly placed kiss on my hair.

"That was meant to be a romantic kiss on your temple," Draco explained. I smiled as I pressed my temple to his lips.

"But, honestly, Malfoy," I tried again, "I don't want you to be disowned."

"Don't worry about it, Granger," Draco said with certainty in his voice. "Everything will be all right."

"You won the bet," I told Draco next.

"Which bet?" Draco asked.

"The fake-dating bet. I told Ron and Ginny that we were faking dating. You won," I told him casually. Draco smirked at me.

"I told you that no girl would ever break up with me," Draco said smugly. I rolled my eyes.

"So, what do you want?" I asked calmly.

"What?" Draco wondered.

"The bet," I reminded him. "Loser does what the winner wants."

"That's easy," Draco drawled. "If the surgery works, I get to kiss you."

"And if it doesn't?" I asked him.

"You get to kiss me," Draco smiled. I grinned as I agreed to his conditions.

We talked of everything and nothing over the next couple of hours. Draco laughed several times, and, each time, I was mesmerized with how he looked when he laughed. Eventually, the Healer came in to remove Draco's bandages. Narcissa Malfoy, Draco's mother, bustled in as well. I guessed that Mrs. Malfoy was not in as much support of Draco's disownment as Lucius was.

"If you're ready, Mr. Malfoy," the Healer said stiffly, "we can see if the spell worked."

"Spell?"I echoed as the Healer shooed me off the bed. I stood to my feet, but Draco reached out for my hand. I took it in mine. "I thought that Draco had a surgery."

"He did," the Healer said impatiently. "We did a surgery on the back part of his brain, so we could perform a spell directly to his optic nerve." Oh. I supposed that made sense. Narcissa stood on the other side of Draco's bed. She cooed to him at regular intervals, assuring him that everything would be all right. She sent me hateful looks, but I just turned my attention back to Draco's hand in mine.

The Healer carefully unwrapped Draco's face. There were many layers of gauze, and the Healer took special care in unwrapping each one. I was quickly losing my patience. I wanted to just jerk off the bandages and find out if Draco was cured or not.

With each painstaking layer, I prayed again that Draco might be all right. The Healer got down to the final layer. It was removed carefully, and Draco's eyes were closed tightly.

"Open your eyes, Mr. Malfoy," the Healer directed. Draco slowly blinked his eyes open. I was standing directly in front of him, so his gaze locked with mine.

"Your eyes are as lovely as I remember, Granger," Draco said smugly as he stared at me with his burning, grey eyes. I jumped up with excitement.

"You can see?" I questioned him. Draco nodded his head triumphantly. Narcissa yelled with glee as she grasped Draco's hand tightly in her own.

"I can see," he affirmed. I practically leapt into his arms as I engulfed him into a hug.

"It's a miracle," the Healer breathed. Draco gave me a knowing smile.

"I'll collect on that bet now. I think it's time that we had a proper kiss, Granger," Draco smiled. His smile was contagious. A grin broke out on my face as I voiced my agreement. Draco retrieved his hand from his mother and gently swept a piece of hair back from my face. He leaned in and kissed me.

It was during that kiss with Draco's hands tangled in my hair and his mother weeping for joy and the Healer completely gob smacked that I finally felt like Hermione again. I smiled happily to myself and kissed Draco a little more forcefully.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: THE ENDING! Thank you so much to everyone who has stuck through this story with me! Your reading means a great deal! Congratulations to all of those who told me that you started shipping Dramione after reading this fic. Welcome to fam. :) Thank you so much for reading my story. I'm glad you liked it.**

Epilogue

The day was gloriously bright as we stood outside with the other students of Hogwarts. We were all participating in the obstacle course that Draco and I had set up. Our team was losing miserably, but I was still having a good time.

"I told you that Blaise shouldn't be on our team," a voice drawled as a pair of arms wrapped around my waist from behind me. I tilted my head to look into the intense eyes of Draco Malfoy.

"Well, if I had known about his inability to climb a rope ladder, I never would have chosen him," I admitted as we both watched the handsome Slytherin cry out from help from the third rung of the ladder.

"Miserable, that one," Draco remarked. He tightened his hold around me. He kissed my cheek just as a flash went off. I looked up to find Ginny holding a camera.

"Gin!" I exclaimed. "You know that I don't like pictures of myself." Ginny gave me a smile.

"But this is a good one," she assured. She handed me the picture as soon as it printed out. I looked at it with Draco looking from over my shoulder.

I loved wizard pictures. They moved of their own accord, giving them that much more appeal. In this picture the sunlight was playing off of Draco's light blond hair as he kissed me over and over again. Each time he kissed my cheek, a smile would blossom over my face. I looked completely happy.

I stared at the picture in awe. This was the first time in a long time that I recognized my reflection. I looked at the picture and instantly knew who that girl was. That was Hermione Granger, and she looked happy.

I held the picture to me possessively as I looked out over the field. Ron was talking bashfully with Tracey Davis. He had moved on, and I was pretty sure that he and Tracey both really liked each other. Astoria and Nott had gotten together since Draco had come back to school. I assumed that their parents had approved of the new union. Ginny was cheering Harry on as he climbed to the top of the rope ladder.

Draco's arms were still wrapped around me.

"We're going to lose," Draco muttered flatly.

"I could give you a participation ribbon," I offered Draco brightly. He took me by the shoulders and spun me around to face him. His face was lit up in a smile. With the wind gently tousling his hair, I do not think that he had ever looked more handsome.

"I'll take a kiss instead," Draco compromised. I smiled as he closed the distance between us. God's grace. A miracle. My life was not the normal that I had wanted it to return to. It was something much different, and it did not look like it was going to change any time soon. I smiled as Draco continued to kiss me. If this was the new normal, then that was fine by me.


End file.
